CRAIG WATSON LEADS FIELD FOR SCOTTISH MID-

AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP OVER HOME COURSE

NEWS RELEASE ISSUED BY THE SCOTTISH GOLF UNION
Former Amateur Champion Craig Watson will be hoping to make local knowledge count when his bid to land the Scottish mid-amateur championship on his home course of East Renfrewshire gets underway on Saturday (12- 14 June).
Watson, who defeated South African Trevor Immelman in the final of The Amateur Championship back in 1997, will be aiming to follow in the footsteps of Renfrewshire team-mate Andrew Farmer who collected the title at Royal Burgess last year.
The 43-year-old former Scotland captain played a key role in guiding his Renfrewshire side to the final of the recent Moneygate Scottish Area Team Championship and will go into this weekend’s event with high hopes of adding a second Mid-Amateur title to his CV, having won the inaugural Championship in 1994.
Farmer misses this year’s Championship but another former winner, Edzell’s Ross Coull who triumphed at Dundonald Links two years ago, is the lowest handicapped man in the sixty-strong field at plus 2.9.
Paul Telfer, the former Scotland, Southampton and Celtic footballer, lines up in the championship for the fourth successive year and will be targeting a place in the last sixteen knock-out stages for the first time, while Hayston’s Paul Betty and Crow Wood’s Ed Wood will be strong candidates to lift the trophy on Monday.
Two rounds of stroke play qualifying take place on Saturday, with the leading sixteen players take their place in the match-play knock out stages on Sunday, before Monday’s semi-final and final. East Renfrewshire GC, located on the south side of Glasgow, hosts the event for the first time.