How Genesis Scottish Open is growing golf by teeing up family fun
‘We are trying to encourage those kids to get into the game and enjoy it and keep coming to the event’
One of the best sights witnessed by this correspondent during last year’s Genesis Scottish Open was a gentleman called Fraser Shaw, who I later learned had travelled through from Houston in Renfrewshire with his two young kids - 12-year-old Andrew and nine-year-old Beth - waiting with them in a dedicated children’s viewing area close to the sixth tee at The Renaissance Club.
They’d been there since 7am and, boy, was the wait worth it. As part of an effort to make it a day to remember for kids at the Rolex Series event, the professional in each group in the pro-am was joined for the walk up the ‘Stadium Hole’ by a youngster. For Andrew, that stroll was with Rory McIlroy while, shortly afterwards, Beth did likewise with Adam Scott. They even had a putt on the green in the scramble format.
“This sort of thing is great,” Fraser told me as both youngsters proudly held signed golf balls from two of the game’s best-known players, and hats off to the Genesis Scottish Open organisers because not only is that opportunity is being provided once again for youngsters at next week’s event but Wednesday has officially been designated as a ‘Family Day’.
The majority of the fans heading to the East Lothian venue will, of course, be adults as people from all over Scotland and the north of England as well turn out in force to see another star-studded field do battle in the $9 million tournament, which is now part of both the DP World Tour and PGA Tour schedules through a co-sanctioning agreement. Hopes are high that last year’s record attendance of 88,735 will be surpassed when the final putt drops next Sunday.
The tournament, though, is also now one of the best examples in the game about something tangible being done during the week to grow golf, with the addition of the ‘Family Day’ showing that the organisers want to play a part in producing the next generation of golfers in Scotland and perhaps even the next Bob MacIntyre or Catriona Matthew.
“So the Family Day is new on Wednesday and we are very excited about that,” Rory Colville, the championship director, told Scotland on Sunday. “It’s about using the pro-am to engage with more kids and giving them the opportunity to see these pros in action. We’ve got some fun things planned in the Fans’ Zone and it should be a great taster for them and hopefully inspire them to play golf and keep attending our tournaments.”
There’s a good chance that the Shaw family will be back in that children’s viewing area on Wednesday morning, which is in exactly the same place, even though the actual hole number is different from last year. In a bid to generate more excitement towards the end of the final round in particular, it will be the 15th hole for this edition and ‘The Stadium’ has been rebranded as ‘The Thistle’.
“We’ve again got the dedicated Kids’ Viewing Area in a prime space in ‘The Thistle’ next to the tee, which was a huge success last year, and this time we also have the ‘Thistle Challenge’ on that feature hole, where a score by the youngsters counts in the pro-am if they hole a putt,” added Colville, who heads up a team dedicated to delivering the best for the Genesis Scottish Open in every single aspect.
In addition, free lessons are once again being provided in the Fan Zone by the Stephen Gallacher Foundation, with that provision set to be even greater than last year, when the total of lessons was 650 after being 450 in 2024.
“I think it is one of the things we are most proud of,” admitted Colville, smiling. “We hope to get to 800 lessons across the week on this occasion and a lot of those lessons are for kids who have never picked up a golf club before. So that is a core part of this tournament - to try to encourage those kids to get into the game and enjoy it and keep coming to the event.
“What the Stephen Gallacher Foundation does for us in the Academy and Fan Zone is absolutely brilliant. Stephen has put his heart and soul into the foundation and kids love that and engage with his name. To have him involved with the event is really important for us.”
As, of course, is having a strong field. Headed by world No 1 Scottie Scheffler, six of the world’s top ten and 14 of the top 20 in the Official World Golf Ranking are in the line up. Out of last year’s winning European Ryder Cup team in New York, only Justin Rose will be absent as the 2014 winner gets himself ready for next week’s 154th The Open at Royal Birkdale.
“Every year we focus with Genesis on giving them the best experience they can possibly have,” observed Colville of the event attracting a stellar field year after year. “The feedback is always exceptional and they keep coming back. In the last two years, in terms of the world rankings we’ve had the fifth strongest field in all of golf and it looks as though we’ll be set to have something similar this year and we are very proud of that.
“Fans want to see Rory, Scottie, Tommy [Fleetwood] and, obviously in Scotland, Bob [MacIntyre] battling it out and we are very privileged to have them in the field again and no doubt next week will be another dramatic contest between them all on the golf course.”
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