Ross McConnachie explains why Peterculter 

had to scratch from Maitland Shield

FROM ROSS McCONNACHIE
Peterculter Golf Club PGA profssional
Not overly impressed by the Scottishgolfview.com article about us scratching from the Maitland Shield.

The full story is that we got caught short in submitting our pool of six players. As I am new to the role of picking the team and still not entirely familiar with all the competitions, I did not realise that a pool of six players had to be submitted one week prior to the competition. I had to send out an email to our squad of players at extremely short notice to check their availability. 
By the time we had to submit our pool of six players I had only four positive responses. The two other spaces in the pool were filled by players whom I had hoped would be available.

As it turned out, they were not available so we were left with the original four. Circumstances had changed for one player and unfortunately we now only had three.
A number of players have consequently replied and were available but they were not in the original pool of six players.
I'm not against the rules as I feel it is a fair system and hopefully we will be better organised in the future but with the way things are in Aberdeen right now, perhaps golfers have less flexibility  to leave work early to commit to successive nights' golfing.