7 July 2015

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon invited three youngsters who have come through the ClubGolf scheme to Edinburgh Castle.

ClubGolf is Scotland’s national junior golf programme which introduces children to golf and supports the early development of young golfers through structured coaching.

It has introduced the game to more than 350,000 youngsters across Scotland, including Joseph Cookson from Haddington, Jack McDonald from Galashiels and Anna McKay from Crail.

The First Minister gave the trio the chance of a lifetime at the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open at Gullane, inviting them to play in the Scottish Government team in the pro-am.

And Nicola revealed to them that they would be playing with US Open winner and Ryder Cup star Graeme McDowell. She said:

Anna, Joseph and Jack have a fantastic opportunity to learn from a Major champion in Graeme McDowell and I hope they benefit from this unique experience. I wish them all the best in the Pro-Am and with their future in golf.

Graeme McDowell is a former winner of the Scottish Open and said he was looking forward to playing with the ClubGolf youngsters:

It should be a lot of fun playing with Anna, Joseph and Jack in the Pro-Am, they can obviously play to a very decent standard and I believe Joseph is a member at Gullane, so I’ll be picking his brain on how to play the course.

ClubGolf is a great initiative, the number of youngsters it has already encouraged to take up the game is tremendous, and I’m more than happy to do my bit to help grow the game even more.

You can read more about this here.

The ClubGolfers met a number of players and celebrities at the pro-am and all performed well, learning a lot from Graeme.

Thank you @Graeme_McDowell for a great day with @scotgov team Anna, Jack & Joseph @AAMScottishOpen #inspiration pic.twitter.com/hKgiCwr5jL

— ClubGolfScotland (@ClubGolfScot) July 8, 2015