SPOTLIGHT ON ALLYN DICK AT END OF GREAT SEASON

By COLIN FARQUHARSON

Colin@scottishgolfview.com

Over the next few days on http://www.scottishgolfview.com/, we are going to feature

Allyn Dick, who made his debut for Scotland at the age of 31 in this past year's Home Internationals.

Today we are featuring Allyn's golfing CV and later we'll publish his views on certain aspects of Scottish golf.

Instead of me asking all the questions, why don't you E-mail me any questions you want to ask Allyn about his golf, past, present or future? E-mail me at Colin@scottishgolfview.com
Image of Allyn Dick in action at this year's Home Internationals by courtesy of Tom Ward Photography.

ALLYN DICK TAKES US THROUGH HIS GOLFING CV
2004 - Played in my first SGU event - tge Scottish open mid-amateur championship, reached the final but was beaten by Roger Roper (former English international player and Walker Cup reserve)
2005 - West of Scotland open amateur stroke-play championshhip winner at  at Cawder - an SGU order of merit event, which, for some reason, people forget about.
2005 and 2006 - Wib Scottish mid-am championship two years in a row.
2006 - Got married and took a break from playing in the majority of the events, picking my favourites to play in.
2007 - Lanarkshire Order of Merit champion
2008 - Lanarkshire county match-play champion
2009 - Moved home club from Shotts (Lanarkshire) to Kingsknowe (Lothians), as I felt I needed a change of scenery and new challenges.
2009 - Cameron Corbett Vase winner at Haggs Castle.
2010 - Lothians county match-play champion
2010 - Member of Lothians county championship-winning team (Carrickvale).
2010 - Newlands Trophy winner at Lanark.
2010 - Gained first cap for Scotland in Home Internationals.
2010 - Member of Carrickvale team who won Scottish Club championship.

2010 - Finished sixth place team and individual European team championship placings.

2010 - Birth of my baby boy, Jacob, on November 11.

I have also won three Dispatch Trophies with Carrickvale (combined foursomes format) in the Edinburgh area, becoming the first club to do so.

I have won the Shotts Golf Club championship for the past seven years and the Kingsknowe championship in the two years I have been a member.

In total, I have won 56 titles since 2002, whether it be 18-hole scratch and handicap or 36-hole events, achieving four course records along the way.

MORE FROM AND ABOUT ALLYN DICK ON Scottishgolfview.com tomorrow.

REMEMBER E-mail your questions for Allyn to Colin@scottishgolfview.com

PGA AUSTRALIA ANNOUNCES ITS BIG EVENT DATES FOR 2011

The Australian Open will precede the Presidents Cup next November, a decision that could put the Australian Masters – an event Tiger Woods has played the last two years – opposite the American star’s own tournament in California. The PGA of Australia announced today that the Aussie Open, likely to be held in the Sydney-area, will be scheduled for November 10 to 13.
The Australian PGA Championship at Coolum will be played from November 24 to 27, a week after the Presidents Cup between the United States and an International team at Royal Melbourne.
The PGA of Australia also said that it was provisionally arranging the Australian Masters for December 1-4, but that was still to be confirmed. Woods, the Australian Masters winner in 2009, has said he’d prefer to see it played the week before the Presidents Cup.
The Aussie Masters is scheduled to be played at Kingston Heath, another sandbelt course near Royal Melbourne and one which would have given Woods and other Presidents Cup players an ideal preparation for the team event.
IMG, which manages Woods, also runs the Australian Masters and had hoped to get the prime slot before the Presidents Cup to boost its field. The Australian Open in Sydney will now have that opportunity, although the likely course, The Lakes, doesn’t have as much in common with Royal Melbourne as Kingston Heath does.
“We would like this date. It’s critical to us,” Mark Steinberg, head of IMG’s global golf division, said in November during the Masters.
“We feel like we took on the risk by moving to this date a few years ago, going up against some big events, and we made it successful. We feel we deserve to keep the date, now that it’s a coveted date for next year.”
Woods received a $3 million appearance fee – half of that paid by the Victorian state government – but in his first year, a government study showed the economic return was more than $30 million.
Max Garske, the chief executive of the PGA of Australia, said the decision “was made in the best interest of both Australian golf and the PGA Tour of Australasia.”
“There were a number of factors that needed to be carefully considered in finalizing the scheduling for 2011, including the timing of a number of international events, the availability of certain venues and the domestic schedule that best serves the Australian golfing public,” Garske said.
“With the focus of the golfing world set to be firmly on Melbourne come mid-November 2011, it is a given that the Presidents Cup will offer up a number of benefits to events falling on either side. So with these factors in mind we feel we have made the decision in the best interest of the game."