Press release -
Lawrie meets his ‘Match’
Scotland’s national tourism organisation is supporting the newest event on The European Tour – the 2015 Saltire Energy Paul Lawrie Match Play.
The inaugural event, which is being held from 30 July - 2 August will be played at Murcar Links in Aberdeen and VisitScotland is giving funding support of £100,000.
It will draw players from across the globe including Major champions Paul Lawrie and John Daly, Ryder Cup stars Nicolas Colsaerts and Edoardo Molinari, Scotland’s highest ranked golfer Marc Warren and 2015 European Tour winners, James Morrison and Richie Ramsay.
The event will mean stunning images of Aberdeen will be shown on TV worldwide in 160 territories, to 400,000,000 homes, including live on Sky Sports (UK), The Golf Channel (USA) and CCTV (China).
The Saltire Energy Paul Lawrie Match Play is an official part of the Race to Dubai and is a great way of showcasing golf in the region. Supporting it is a key part of Scotland’s Ryder Cup legacy programme, to build and deliver a strong portfolio of domestic golf events.
Sixty-four players will go up against each other in a straight knockout match play format – the same format used during the Sunday singles in The Ryder Cup - battling it out for the €1million prize fund. This is only one of two events played in this format on The European Tour.
A stalwart of The European Tour over the past 23 seasons and fresh out of competing in The Open at St Andrews, Aberdeenshire resident Paul Lawrie will be the tournament host, with his management company, 4 Sports & Entertainment, promoting the event and Saltire Energy, one of his own sponsors, as the title sponsor.
Paul Lawrie commented:
“It is fantastic to be bringing another European Tour event to my home town Aberdeen. I’m extremely grateful to Mike Loggie, of Saltire Energy, for sharing my vision and coming on board as the event’s title sponsor.
"Match Play is a format that we don’t get to play too often on Tour and the guys have been telling me how much they are looking forward to playing in a straight knock-out tournament.
“We have a star-studded line-up full of major champions, Ryder Cup players and 2015 European Tour winners so the spectators are in for an extremely exciting week.”
Malcolm Roughead, Chief Executive of VisitScotland said:
“This brand new golfing event on the European Tour calendar – part of Scotland’s Summer of Golf - highlights once again the huge popularity of the sport in Scotland and its individual regions and will help to promote golf tourism in the region to a wider audience.
“This is welcome news for the local visitor economy in Aberdeen City and Shire, with accommodation providers, transport operators, food and drink suppliers, visitor attractions, restaurants, shops and more all benefiting from an influx of visitors.
“This latest event confirms Aberdeen City & Shire as a big player on the national golf scene and follows on from a successful Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open at Balgownie Links, Royal Aberdeen, in July 2014. It demonstrates that we can successfully host golf events of any scale and showcase this beautiful region globally.
“As we saw during The Ryder Cup in 2014, golf captured the imagination of people throughout the country. Golf tourism is worth £220m to the country annually, and hosting fantastic events like the Saltire Energy Paul Lawrie Match Play, further enhances Scotland’s reputation as the Home of Golf.”
Paul Lawrie has close connections with Murcar Links Golf Club through his Foundation. The links course, which was established in 1909, hosted the Paul Lawrie Golf Centre Northern Open earlier this year and the Paul Lawrie Foundation Scottish Boys Championship in 2012.
Golf Aberdeen City and Shire were last year awarded £22,292 in VisitScotland Growth Funding to increase the number of golfvisitors to the area. Golfing in Aberdeenshire was highlighted to around two million consumers, with support from Aberdeenshire Council.
The Paul Lawrie Golf Centre in Aberdeen established by the former Open champion and Ryder Cup player recently received a VisitScotland 5* Quality Assurance Activity Centre award.
Adult matchday tickets are available for £15. U18s enter for free and receive a Paul Lawrie foundation cap on entry at the event.Thurs – Sun season pass is £35 and tickets can be bought on the day at Murcar Links. Tickets and more information can be found at www.paullawriematchplay.com
VisitScotland is investing a total of just over £2 million into eight professional golf events in 2015. Following on from Scotland’s hosting of what is regarded as the “best-ever” Ryder Cup at Gleneagles in 2014, the national tourism organisation is continuing to support golf tourism - which is worth an estimated £220m to the economy and supports around 4,400 jobs.
Scotland’s special ‘summer of golf’ teed off in June at the SSE Scottish Hydro Challenge at Spey Valley GC, Aviemore (when VisitScotland supported the event, one of the premier events on the European Challenge Tour, for the 10th year). The latest major professional event in the spectacular series was The Open Championship at St Andrews and next will be the RICOH Women’s British Open at Trump Turnberry.
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Notes to Editors
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- Follow us on twitter: @visitscotnews
- VisitScotland is Scotland’s national tourism organisation. Its core purpose is to maximise the economic benefit of tourism to Scotland.
- The organisation’s core objective is to contribute to the Tourism 2020 Strategy ambition of growing tourism revenues by £1 billion by 2020.
- This will be supported by seven overarching strategies:
- Marketing: we will market Scotland and its outstanding assets to visitors from all parts of the world, including the promotion of Scotland to people living in Scotland to visit different parts of the country
- Events: we will support the national events strategy and its delivery, and sustain, develop and promote Scotland’s international profile as one of the world’s foremost events destinations
- Internationalisation and International Engagement: we will utilise all our platforms to enable Scottish-based tourism businesses to better understand international opportunities and market to a global audience and we will work within One Scotland Partnerships to optimise the potential of Scotland’s Diaspora and our strategic partners at regional, European and global levels
- Customer Experience: we will provide information and inspiration to visitors both locally and globally via their preferred medium of choice
- Quality and Sustainability: we will provide support and advice to businesses, with the goal of improving the quality and sustainability of the tourism sector in Scotland. We will provide quality assurance to visitors through our Quality Schemes
- Inclusive Tourism: we will strive to make tourism in Scotland inclusive and available to all
- Working in Partnership: we will listen to and work with the industry, partners and communities to shape our offering and support
- VisitScotland works together with tourism businesses to make tourism a success for everyone and ensure the industry continues to grow.
- The organisation employs 700 people and has offices and VisitScotland Information Centres across Scotland.
- According to a recent Deloitte study, the tourism economy supports 270,000 jobs in Scotland in 20,000 diverse businesses. The same study calculates that the tourism economy contributes £11 billion annually (direct and indirect impact, including day visits) and supports around 10 per cent of employment in Scotland. Almost 16 million tourists take overnight trips to Scotland.
- For VisitScotland’s press releases go to http://www.visitscotland.org/media_centre.aspx, tourism statistics and frequently asked questions go to http://www.visitscotland.org/
- Where possible, a Gaelic speaker will be made available for broadcast interviews on request (Far an tèid iarraidh, agus far am bheil sin nar comas, bruidhinnidh neach le Gàidhlig aig agallamh)
- For holiday information on Scotland go to www.visitscotland.com
- For information about business events in Scotland go to www.conventionscotland.com
Year of Food and Drink 2015- 2015 is the Year of Food and Drink, a celebration of Scotland’s natural larder and the role that food and drink plays in shaping our economic success.
- Scotland generates over £2.5m per day through food and drink tourism.
- A series of themed months will create an appetite for key areas of Scotland’s food and drink industries – from seafood and whisky to berries and high-quality meat
- For more information, visit www.visitscotland.com/tastescotland
