McDonald Golf Club

This is the third year that a competition has been held to find the Junior Golf Club of the year in Scotland.

McDonald Golf Club Juniors have been very successful in the past, with the club competing in the Pennant and Felicity Junior Competitions. We have also had individuals achieving major success; Michele Thomson went on to become Ladies Scottish Champion and a member of the GB Curtis Team; Adam Dunton got to the final of the Nick Faldo series and won the North East Match Play Trophy. We have a large Junior Girls Section who play on a Thursday (Junior Day) and we hold additional coaching for the girls on a Saturday Morning. In 2006 we started Clubgolf which introduces Primary 5’s from the local Primary Schools to a structured coaching programme under the supervision of qualified volunteer coaches.

McDonald Golf Club decided to enter the competition for 2009, as we had achieved a lot of significant achievements that year, as well as consolidating on the past achievements. We applied for a grant from “Awards for All Scotland” Lottery Funding for financial assistance for creating a new practice area for the juniors. This was successful and we received £9900,which enabled to commence work, and we hope to have it complete by 2011. In addition to that the Rotary Club of Ellon donated £2500 towards the project and the local Contractor Jim Jamieson undertook the earthworks for half his usual fee.

Clubgolf continued to improve in this its third year with us having 11 coaches and we had 80 children compared to 60 in 2008, which exceeded our expectations. Sandy Aird our new Professional has also been active in Coaching at the more advanced level, and three of the volunteers took the volunteers advanced coaching course.

Our Club has a Child Protection Policy in place and offers equal opportunity to all Girls and Boys.

We completed our application for the competition on the 1^st June, and on the 1^st July we were informed that we were one of the seven clubs making it to the final. We  had then to undertake a video presentation of some of the junior members being coached. All the finalists were invited to attend the final Practice Day at the Open at St Andrews on the 14th July, 2010.  We were allowed to take six children so we took a randome selection from Clubgolf, Junior Girls and Junior Boys. 

Photo below taken in the sunshine before setting off.

At the presentation it was announced that the  Orkney Golf Club won, but we were proud to get to the final, and were the only Club from Grampian in the final. It was atrocious weather at St Andrews, but the children were enthusiastic and went spotting the Competitors at the Practice area. Amongst those spotted were Ernie Els, Darren Clarke, Nick Faldo, VJ Sing, Sam Torrance and Sandy Lyle.

Photo below at the presentation at St Andrews.

This achievement is all down to a group of helpers who guide, coach and support our junior section, hopefully next year we can win the competition. Would you like to help? We are needing to recruit more coaches, we presently have 11 but desperately need more. When the new Junior practice facility beside the 18th tee is completed we should be able to expand our juniors and club golf intake. We presently have around 80 children attending coaching and playing 6, 9 & 18 hole competitions on a Thursday afternoon / evening, please consider this request and become a junior coach. Your only commitment after training is one and a half hours on a Thursday, for more information please contact the office.

Regards, Dave Heap.