Showing care for fellow PGA pros sees surprise sprung on Scottish Region chairman
Montrose Golf Links pro raises money through pro-am and also walked West Highland Way
Jason Boyd may be the chairman of the PGA in Scotland Region but his fellow committee members managed to hide something significant from him and spring a nice surprise at a Gleneagles get-together.
Without the Montrose Golf Links head professional knowing anything about it, Boyd was named as the PGA in Scotland Toby Sunderland Award nominee at the region’s annual meeting at the Perthshire venue.
The award, which is named after the founder of leading waterproof brand Sunderland of Scotland, showcases contributions made by PGA professionals, with each of the six regions around the UK and Ireland coming up with a nominee.
In Boyd’s case, he has been put forward for the work he does for PGA Care, which was formerly called the PGA Benevolent Fund and is the official support system for members through a variety of ways and means.
“It is obviously nice to get some recognition,” Boyd told The Scotsman. “Funnily enough, my Scottish Region committee put me up for it and managed not to tell me, so it was a complete shock.”
Phil Taylor, the head pro at Pachesham Golf Centre in Surrey, won the award last year for his extensive charitable contributions while the 2024 recipient was Irishman Ciaran Carroll in recognition of the Ashbourne Golf Club head professional’s work with young people who have physical and learning disabilities.
“In the last six years since I became vice chairman and then chairman, finding out a lot more about what the PGA Care charity actually does and who it actually helps really is quite eye-opening,” added Boyd.
“Like me back in the day, I think a lot of people think it is to look after retired old professionals who hadn’t put enough by for their retirement fund, but it’s about much more than that. PGA Care is also a better name for it as I think benevolent was such an old-fashioned name that none of the young guys knew what it was.
‘There are good scenarios and very poor ones’
“Obviously there are good scenarios where the money helps and obviously there are very poor scenarios as well where there’s nothing much anyone can do when he or she passes away or even worse.
“Alan White (the former Lanark professional and current PGA chairman) is a trustee, as is Tristan Crew and a fellow pro called Paul McEvoy. They sit and decide how the money is going to be raised, how the money is going to be spent.
“Since I got involved and found out a little bit more about it, I have held a pro-am every September. 2026 will be the fourth one, so we have raised in excess of £30,000 through them and this year will surpass probably £35,000.
“I’m asking pros to give up their time free of charge for that. There’s no professional prize fund and it’s just amateur prizes. It’s nice to engage with the sponsors on the day who are putting money into the fund and we tell them about what it gets used for through showing a couple of videos.
“In addition, the summer before last, I’m one of five so, with my two brothers and two sisters, we walked the West Highland Way and I raised about £1,500 from that for the Care Fund.
‘I would like to see us do more in Scotland’
“I just took it upon myself to find out a bit more about it because it is our charity, it’s our fellow members and, god forbid, we might ever need it ourselves one day. It raises a lot of money for good causes.”
Boyd was presented with his award by Crew, the PGA’s Executive Director - Member Services, with the meeting at Gleneagles being attended on this occasion by a number of current UHI professional golf students.
“It was good to see a high percentage of young professionals at our meeting last week as that means they are learning a bit about it,” said Boyd. “Personally, I would like to see the PGA in Scotland do a little bit more. Because I’m up in the north-east, I would like to see somebody do something in the Central Belt as well. The more education about it, the more you learn about it and the more we can learn how the money is used and I think that will come over time.”
Handed out by Gullane head professional Alasdair Good on behalf of TGI Golf through it partnering the scheme, Trainee of the Year Awards were also presented to Hannah McCook (Forres), Stuart Easton (Irvine) and Kieran Stark (Cawder).
On a day when numerous topics were discussed, Boyd reckoned that a session delivered by Joe Kelly, the PGA’s Head of Membership Support, on the challenges that PGA professionals are facing in today’s climate was particularly useful to those in attendance.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years and it has totally changed in that time,” he said. “So that was good because it was interactive and the floor got involved and there were a lot of good ideas being tossed around. Hopefully people took away some of those ideas. For example, how to deal with committees when they are negotiating things like contracts as that has undoubtedly changed beyond recognition.”
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