The Challenge Tour heads to Scotland this week for the Farmfoods Scottish Challenge supported by the R&A, taking place at Newmachar Golf Club from August 8-11. Here’s everything you need to know.
British Dominance
The Scottish Challenge has been a fixture on the Challenge Tour for most of the last 20 years, starting in 2006 at Murcar Links before moving to Macdonald Cardrona Hotel for the following two years and Macdonald Spey Valley from 2009-2018. After a four-year hiatus, it returned in 2022 at a new venue – Newmachar Golf Club in Aberdeen.
The list of past champions has been dominated by British talent, with 11 victors from home shores, including DP World Tour winners David Law from Scotland, who won in 2018, and England’s Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston, who recorded his first professional win at the 2014 tournament.
While there have only been four non-British winners, the list does include five-time Major winner Brooks Koepka, whose triumph in 2013 was his third of the season and earned him automatic promotion to the DP World Tour.
Newmachar’s Test
The Hawkshill Course at Newmachar Golf Club was designed by renowned architect Dave Thomas and Peter Alliss, ‘the voice of golf’, and opened in 1990 after over ten years of planning and construction.
The heathland course measures over 6,700 yards and demands precision at every turn, with narrow tree-lined fairways requiring control off the tee and water features ready to collect wayward shots. Players will also have to contend with the strategic and plentiful bunkering set amongst the greens when hitting approach shots.
The Field
A strong field assembles in Aberdeen this week, with numbers two and three on the Road to Mallorca Rankings – Englishman John Parry and Joel Moscatel of Spain – searching for a third win of the season to earn automatic promotion to the DP World Tour.
Joining them are several DP World Tour winners, including Denmark’s Lucas Bjerregaard, English David Horsey, and Scot Marc Warren, who is pursuing a second individual title on home soil this week having triumphed at Gleneagles in the 2007 Johnnie Walker Championship.
Also teeing it up at Newmachar will be Tapio Pulkkanen, fresh from representing his native Finland last week at Le Golf National in the 2024 Men’s Olympic Golf Competition, and 16-year-old Junior Ryder Cup winner Kris Kim, who will be making his Challenge Tour debut this week.
