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.

2020

The format for the event was reviewed for 2016 and having been successfully completed over the last four years, and the changes, supported by the players, will remain in the revised format for 2020.

There will be a 36-hole stroke-play qualifying played over two rounds on Sunday 12th July at Prestonfield Golf Club. Prestonfield have hosted the event on 6 previous occasions and we are looking forward to returning there in their Centenary year. The leading 16 qualifiers go forward to the match play phase at the same venue with the match play rounds being held on Tuesday 14th, Thursday 16th July and the semi-finals and final on Saturday 18th July.

2019

Mark Napier, the 2019 Turnhouse Club Champion, achieved a notable double by winning the Lothians Golf Association Men's Championship at an overcast Broomieknowe Golf Club defeating Stuart McLaren (Bruntsfield Links G.S.) at the 19th with a birdie 3.

In a closely fought match Mark went ahead with a birdie 3 at the 3rd, only to be pegged back to all square at the next. Mark went ahead again at the 7th where the hole was conceded and again the advantage only lasted one hole. Mark birdied the 9th to turn 1 up.

A four was good enough at the 10th to go 2 up but Stuart won the 11th and 13th with pars to bring the match back to all square with 5 holes to play.

Stuart holed a monster putt at the short 15th for a 2 to go one up in the match for the first time and with the 16th halved in pars, stood on the 17th tee 1 up with 2 to play. Mark birdied the 17th from 3 feet to square the match and with the 18th halved in birdies, the match went to extra holes.

Mark birdied the 19th from 3 feet to take the title back to Turnhouse GC for the first time since 2004 when Steven Armstrong won at Mortonhall.  The loosing semi-finalists were local player Jamie McIntosh and Scott McCandless of Bathgate.

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Allyn Dick (Kingsfield) won the Stuart Cup as the leading qualifier with a 10 under par score of 130 (67 + 63). This equalled Keith Nicholson’s record of three Stuart Cup victories. He finished one ahead of 2017 Stuart Cup winner, Stuart McLaren (Bruntsfield Links GS) with Benn McLeod (Musselburgh) and Stuart Blair (Royal Musselburgh) in third place on 135. The cut for the match play was 142 with only one of 7 players on that score getting through on a countback.

Lothian Amateur Championship - Champion

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