Amateur Championship

The Lothians Championship is the Lothians Golf Association's flagship event and was first held in 1947 when the local evening newspaper presented the magnificent Evening News Championship Trophy, one of the most impressive trophies in golf. The Evening News sponsored the event for almost 50 years.

The Stuart Cup, which was first used for individual winners in the Team Tournament, has, since 1965, been used as the trophy for the leading qualifying score in the Amateur Championship.

The first winner of the Championship was A S Flockhart, of Royal Musselburgh. He went on to represent Scotland in the Home Internationals in 1948/49, a feat that has since been achieved by 15 other Lothians champions.

Winners have included former Ryder Cup and Walker Cup captains in Bernard Gallacher (1967) and George Macgregor (1968) respectively.

Duddingston has produced the most winners in the event, including five-time Scottish champion Ronnie Shade and Stuart Smith, who shares the record for the most wins - four - with Haddington's Keith Nicholson.

Before 2018, Smith, Nicholson, Gullane’s W C D Hare and Ratho Park's Callum MacPhail were the only players to have successfully defended the title, the former having chalked up a hat-trick of wins from 1993-1995 however they are now joined by Jamie Morris of Glencorse.

Only J Burnside has successfully defended the Stuart Cup (1957/58) and only Stuart Middleton (Glencorse) and Lee Morgan (Dunbar) have won both the stroke play and the match play trophies in the same year (1990 & 2016 respectively) but 10 others have won both trophies in different years.

2019

The format for the event was reviewed for 2016 and having been successfully completed over the last three years, and the changes supported by the players, will remain in the revised format for 2019.

There will be a 36-hole stroke-play qualifying played over two rounds on Sunday 14 July at Broomieknowe in Midlothian. The leading 16 qualifiers go forward to the match play phase at the same venue with the match play rounds being held on Tuesday 16, Thursday 18 July and the semi-finals and final on Saturday 20 July.

The Association is grateful to Broomieknowe for agreeing to host our flagship event at their excellent course.

2018

In the final Jamie Morris (Glencorse) retained the Lothians Championship at the 18th hole after a high quality final against Nurtai Saldarov (Craigielaw).

After halving the first 3 holes Jamie ran in a long putt from off the green at the 4th for an eagle 3, starting a run of four 3’s, including two birdies, to take a commanding 4 hole lead. However Nurtai, not for the first time in the last 2 weeks, kept his cool and birdied the 8th to get one back, only to lose that at the 11th but regain it again with another birdie at the 12th. Wayward shots by Jamie at the 13th and 14th narrowed the gap to 1 hole but Jamie played steady golf over the last 4 holes to hold that lead to the last. This was a great game of golf and display of sportsmanship by both players. Michael Rolland (Luffness New) and Sean Marc (Broomieknowe) were the beaten semi-finalists.

Nurtai Saldarov (Craigielaw) won the Stuart Cup as the leading qualifier with a 2 over par score of 142 with Jamie Duguid (Dunbar) one shot behind and defending Stuart Cup winner Stuart McLaren (Bruntsfield Links GS) in third place. The match play qualifying cut was 150.

Lothian Amateur Championship - Champion

Lothians Amateur Championship
Leading Qualifier Winner presented with Stuart Cup since 1965