Why Tartan Tour memories will always be special for so many people

It was caused by sad circumstances following the shock news that Colin Gillies, the circuit’s all-time leading money-winner, had passed away at the age of 58, but the Tartan Tour has probably been mentioned more over the past few days than the last decade or so.

It’s maybe important to point out straight away just in case there is any confusion that the Tartan Tour, the circuit run by the PGA in Scotland, is different to the Tartan Pro Tour, which was set up by Paul Lawrie to provide playing opportunities during the Covid pandemic and has blossomed into an official feeder circuit for what was the Challenge Tour but is now called the Hotel Planner Tour.

The Tartan Tour has always been close to this correspondent’s heart because my first connection with it came through playing in a once popular pro-am at Dunbar, where I was lucky to play most of my junior golf, in the days when the likes of Harry Bannerman, David Huish and Wille Milne were some of the star names on the domestic circuit.

Russell Weir, the one-time Tartan Tour chieftain, in action during the 2012 Senior PGA Professional Championship at Northamptonshire County Golf Club | Pete Norton/Getty Images

As a teenager, it was a huge thrill being out on a golf course for a few hours with people like that and hopefully the Scottish Golf squad players, for example, get exactly the same buzz when they get similar opportunities in pro-ams these days for the Genesis Scottish Open and the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open.

A few years later, having started to cover golf for the David Begg Sports Agency, I found myself back at the East Lothian venue for the Dunbar Professional Championship, a 72-holer, and it was then that I first came across one of the Tartan Tour’s legendary figures.

Russell Weir, the long-serving Cowal professional, really was a fantastic player, hence why Alister Nicol, the Daily Record’s outstanding golf reporter at the time and a close friend of some famous figures in the world of sport, dubbed him the ‘Tartan Tour chieftain’.

Three years in a row from 1988 to 1990, Weir won the Dunbar event before rushing off to catch the last ferry back to his beloved Dunoon, as he did after landing various other title triumphs at that time, the one thing eluding him, ironically, being the Scottish PGA Championship and that probably stung like hell when you consider what a bloody good golfer he was.

Around that time, the various PGA Regions around Great Britain and Ireland played in a team event called the Hi-Tec Masters and I remember being at The Belfry one year for it, with Weir teaming up with John Chillas and Craig Maltman in the Scottish side. Partly because Maltman, a fellow Berwickshire man, had been the first golfer I’d written about in my journalistic career, that was a special few days for me and, as was the case more often than not, the Scots won that week by a hefty margin.

At that time, the Tartan Tour was a thriving circuit with Sandy Jones at the helm before he moved south to take up the reins of the umbrella organisation at The Belfry and the event that really illustrated the circuit’s stature back then was the Scottish PGA Championship, particularly when it was staged at Dalmahoy on the outskirts of Edinburgh for a second spell.

Colin Gillies pictured playing in the 2002 Volvo PGA Championship at Wentworth | Warren Little/Getty Images

In 1993, Sam Torrance held off Colin Montgomerie to claim the crown for a fifth time before Andrew Coltart won a play-off against Gary Orr the following year then Gillies and Brian Marchbank became Scottish champions there as well in 1995 and 1996 respectively.

It was fitting that Gillies came out on top in one of those editions on the East Course because the circuit was probably stronger then than any other time, as illustrated by those events attracting huge crowds to one of the best tournament venues in the country at that time.

An equally big event back then was the Northern Open and it was enjoyable, for instance, covering back-to-back wins by Colin Brooks in 1989 and 1990 at Cruden Bay and Nairn Dunbar. Part of the reason I remember the first of those is that I stayed at The Udny Arms Hotel in Newburgh and was introduced to its legendary sticky toffee pudding, as well as enjoying the chance to nip on to Newburgh-on-Ythan, a nine-holer then, for a hit before breakfast.

As for that one at Nairn Dunbar, I still chuckle to myself whenever I see Garry Harvey, now The R&A’s official engraver, putting the name of the new Open champion on the Claret Jug because he was a top player himself back then and had a brilliant sense of humour.

Garry Harvey, now The R&A's official engraver, was a leading player at one time on the Tartan Tour | Tom Dulat/Getty Images

Partnering a media team in the pro-am, Harvey had us rolling about the ground in laughter when he suggested that Kevin Ferrie, another one of my golf-writing colleagues at the time and someone who played with a distinct fade/cut, should start his tee shot at one of the holes that has since been replaced on an out of bounds post on the right side of the fairway knowing, of course, that was an impossible shot from him to pull off.

With David Longmuir now running the show at the Gleneagles-based organisation and being supported by the likes of long-serving staff members Lesley Barnard, Claire Wilson and Roy Murray, the PGA in Scotland still does a fine job in what are undoubtedly way more difficult financial times and long may that continue to be the case.

The Tartan Tour provided a brilliant platform for the likes of Gillies while it also gave us the likes of Peter and Anne Lloyd, two brilliant PGA in Scotland servants. In his time as the region’s secretary, Peter’s menu for an annual Hangover Lunch held initially at Glenbervie when it was based there then the Dormy House at Gleneagles was scotch broth, steak pie and dumplings then sticky toffee pudding to finish.

I still remember the smile on his face as we all waddled out that day feeling as though we were going to burst and it’s memories like that I, for one, will always cherish when I think of the Tartan Tour and being lucky that it has been and still remains part of my working life.