Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Golf merger makes sense

Paul Lawrie helped launch Scottish Golf this week.
Paul Lawrie helped launch Scottish Golf this week.

I’ve always tried my best to keep out of the politics of curling.

Over the years I’ve learned that you just have to focus on what you can influence – and that’s your game and your team’s game.

There are things I agree with to do with our administrators and things I don’t agree with but to start getting involved would only be a distraction.

So, if I was a golfer, I’d probably have kept out of the debate about the amalgamation of the SGU and SLGA into one body for the men and women’s game.

But, now that it has finally happened this week, I have to say that it seems like the common sense thing to do.

The best thing you can say about it is, most people’s reaction has been ‘why didn’t that happen years ago?’

To have one organisation for amateur golf sounds like a no-brainer to me.

Making golf as welcoming as it can possibly be for juniors and women is a big priority for Scottish Golf, I gather.

My own experience as a youngster was a very positive one.

Pitlochry Golf Club encourages its junior section and its ladies one, so I’ve never felt as if I’ve not had equal treatment with boys or men.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve stuck with it as my home club.

But I know that won’t be the case at every club across Scotland.

Golf is a great game and gives you important life skills, so to see a new unified authority focused on upholding its traditions and improving on them is a good thing.

My invite to the Dunhill Links must have got lost in the post again this year!

Scotland really is a crazy country for weather I’m sitting watching the Dunhill being played at St Andrews in autumn and the players are getting better conditions than the Open in the summer!

Because the crowds aren’t huge and it’s at the back end of the season, you kind of forget how important a competition this is.

A win can take somebody almost half-way to Ryder Cup qualification and can transform a career.

Hopefully that will happen for a couple of the Scottish players on Sunday.

I’m sure the Dundee United chairman will have an idea by now on who he wants to replace Jackie McNamara.

All I’ll say is.keep away from Tommy Wright!

We had a pretty successful week in our last competition in Stockholm, getting to the final.

It was as strong a field as you could get, and we beat the current world champions and Olympic champions to get into Sunday’s last game.

The final against Rachel Homan was a bit frustrating because we were chasing for pretty much the whole game, and against a team in the form of Rachel’s, that’s a very hard thing to do.

I’m definitely feeling positive about where we are, though.

This time last year we had failed to qualify for the knock-outs in our first tournament in Canada and in Stockholm.

It’s been much better this year.