The Scottish Disability Golf Partnership has just concluded its inaugural Golf Festival Weekend for people with disabilities and serious health problems.  The three days of golf, golf training and practice sessions for beginners and the more established golfers, was held at the Wellsgreen Golf Academy near Kirkcaldy, Elmwood College Golf Course, near Cupar and St Michaels Golf Club, near Leuchars.

Over 150 people entered for the various packages offered by the SDGP, which varied from a single golf lesson with one of the six PGA Professionals on hand for the weekend, to the full three day package, which included accommodation, golf, golf lessons and catering.

The Head PGA Professional at Wellsgreen, Donald McKay, said, "We had lots of differing disabilities for the Golf Festival, including mobility issues, but what impresses our PGA team here most, is the banter and camaraderie between the golfers and their coaches".

The first day of the Festival also saw the more established golfers participate in a "Challenge Trophy" match against the members of the Elmwood Golfing Society.  This match saw teams of SDGP members and their coaches being matched with EGS members in stableford competitions.

Bill, one of the SDGP's coaches, said, "It was grand to have a friendly game in good weather. Elmwood is quite flat and open, but has very tricky greens.  Coaching and playing at the same time can sometimes be tricky, but the Elmwood guy's friendly approach helped us out and we had a good laugh".

The Elmwood Results for the SDGP 2010 GolfbloggerUK Order of Merit Championships for both players and coaches were as follows:

SDGP members

1st Derek Milne of Fife 42 points
2nd Colin Brock of Fife 40 points
3rd Fraser Paterson of Edinburgh 36 points

SDGP Coaches

1st Paul Shepherd of Fife 32 points
2nd Alan Bruce of Johnstone 31 points
3rd Bill Dickman of Fife 29 points

Team Event results for the Elmwood "Challenge Trophy" were

1st Alan Bruce, Colin Brock and Brian Milne with 107 points
2nd Fraser Paterson, Robert Craig and Alan Hendry with 102 points.

Also attending the Festival was Billy Braisby, President of the Mary Leishman Foundation, who's Trustees made a substantial donation to the Golf Festival.  He and some of his colleagues had several demonstrations of the new putter and took up a blindfold challenge laid down by the SDGP.

"It was a very strange experience to be blindfolded and have to play golf.  I have a greater knowledge now of what disabled golfers have to deal with and respect their ability and determination to show they can break down barriers.  I think my golf might have improved a bit when I was blindfolded?"

The SDGP, through support from Comic Relief and Radio Tay's "Cash for Kids", provided a 30-minute lesson, practise facilities, golf on the adjacent course and catering to participants over three days at Wellsgreen, for anyone with a disability or serious health problem and included the vision impaired, amputees, the blind, deaf, those with learning disabilities, heart attack, road traffic accident and stroke victims.

Over the weekend of the Golf Festival, John Ambrose of the United States demonstrated his new invention, The L2 Lateral Line Putter and provided instruction and demonstrations to all the participants and Professionals attending.  John, who is a pilot, was accompanied by his son, who was also teaching the correct stance and use of the Lateral Line.  John said, "This style, which is similar to side-saddle putting, is quickly becoming a very popular way of getting the ball into the cup.  Like side-saddle, the golfer faces the hole when putting, but unlike that stance, using the Lateral Line is more naturally upright and the ball location is next to the golfer where the natural swing of the stroking arm takes place, similar to rolling a ball with your hand. This allows for a stable and simple repetition that creates a tempo stroke with a larger swing potential up and down the aim line."

The SDGP golfers and their coaches then moved on to St Michaels Golf Club near Leuchars where their penultimate golf competitions for the GolfbloggerUK 2010 Order of Merit Championships took place.  Winners on the day were as follows:

SDGP Players

1st Jim Gales of Fife 42 points
2nd Steve Bramwell of Johnstone 40 points
3rd Willy McEwan of Fife 33 points

SDGP Coaches

1st Rob Steel of Glasgow 35 points
2nd Paul Shepherd of Fife 34 points
3rd Brendon Defelice of Clarkston 26 points

SDGP Team event

1st Jim Gales, Paul Shepherd and Ernie Finnie with 107 points
2nd Steve Bramwell, Colin Brock, Willy McEwan and Stevie Cunningham with 101 points

Steve Bramwell, the SDGP Secretary said, "Thanks to the support of Comic Relief, Cash for Kids and the Leishman Foundation, we were able to put on this fantastic weekend of golf.  We have never dealt with so many beginners and novices at one time and we would like to take this opportunity to thankeveryone who helped and took part, like our sponsors and the people at Wellsgreen, Elmwood and St Michaels."

More information about the SDGP can be found at www.sdgp.co.uk.