It has been confirmed today that the Paul Lawrie Match Play will this year be played at Archerfield Links on the Fidra Links course.
The event continues to be part of The 2016 European Tour International Schedule, and the 64-man knock out match play format will remain the same. The date of the tournament, from August 4-7, will also stay unchanged as will the €1million prize fund.
The CEO of 4sports & Entertainment, Dominik Senn, whose company are both the promoter of the tournament and also Lawrie’s management group, said: “We are very much looking forward to staging year two of the Match Play at Archerfield Links, who, along with East Lothian Council have presented an attractive proposition for staging the event given the nature of the club and the wide business reach of the location.
“We are all excited to work closely with Tom Younger and his team at Archerfield who we know will do a fantastic job in hosting the event. I’d like to make it clear however that any decision to change venue is in no way a reflection on Murcar Links Golf Club as we have nothing but praise for the course, the members, and the entire team at Murcar who helped in delivering a fantastic first event in 2015. We maintain that we could return to Murcar with every confidence in the future.”
Senn added: “4SPORTS are the promoter of two tournaments on The European Tour and we know well the challenges to make these events commercially viable. We have an initial three year commitment to the European Tour for the Match Play (2015-2017), so it was never in question that the event will take place this year.
“Paul deserves a lot of credit for having the vision to launch his own European Tour event and we are fortunate to be working with such a fine ambassador who continues to give so much back to the sport and now also to the tour he has competed on for so many years. The format of this event presents us with a great opportunity to be different to most other weeks on the tour and we are all committed to building on what was a great first event last year.
Lawrie commented: “Archerfield will be a great venue for the tournament this year and Fidra Links is a brilliant course with a unique blend of pine forest and links golf. Murcar did a fantastic job at hosting our first event last year and the door remains firmly open for taking the event back there in the future.”
Tom Younger, Chief Executive of Archerfield Links, added: “We are very excited to be working with Paul and his team along with East Lothian Council in hosting the event at Archerfield Links. It will be an exciting month of golf at the Club, as we will continue to host the Scottish Senior Open on August 18-21. We are delighted to be the host venue, it will be a great event for East Lothian and wonderful to see some of the top players from the European Tour back in action on Scotland’s Golf Coast at Archerfield this August.”
Councillor John McMillan, spokesperson for Economic Development and Tourism at East Lothian Council, was also pleased, adding: “We are delighted to welcome the Paul Lawrie Match Play to East Lothian and look forward to working with all of our partners to make the most of this event on Scotland's Golf Coast. This compliments our aim to be Scotland's leading coastal, leisure, food and drink destination.”
Keith Waters, Chief Operating Officer of The European Tour, said: “We are looking forward to working again with the team at 4sports on the Paul Lawrie Match Play in 2016 and remain grateful to Paul for his continued support.
“We would like to place on record our thanks to everyone at Murcar for their help in staging the initial tournament last year, but similarly we are excited about taking the event to another tremendous course in Archerfield.
“The East Lothian venue is superb and as has been said in the past, the opportunity for our members to play a match play format as part of the Tour is something that they relish, and in a Ryder Cup year gives an added incentive to show case their match play abilities.”
4SPORTS also confirmed that the pricing structure for tickets to the event will remain as previously stated and any tickets that had already been purchased via The European Tour’s website will still be valid at Archerfield. A new website for the event will also be live in the coming days.
