Inaugural team event to be staged at Gleneagles

Gleneagles will return to the European Tour – sort of – after a four-year gap next year with the inaugural European Team Championships part of the 2018 schedule released yesterday.

The Perthshire resort has been off the tour since the successful staging of the Ryder Cup in 2014, but the event tied in with the multi-sport championship being shared between Berlin and Glasgow is listed among four new events on the new International Schedule.

How much input the European Tour have into the ambitious format – which will see men and women professionals playing together for the first time competitively – is not clear other than providing their members to play in it.

Both the men’s tour and the Ladies European Tour are backing the 16-nation event which will feature men’s, women’s and mixed competitions played over five days from August 8 to 12.

However the date clashes with the PGA Championship at Bellerive, the final year that major will be played in an August slot before it moves to May in 2019, so it’s unlikely the top men will be competing.

Gleneagles has regularly hosted European Tour events but became an annual stop in the early 1980s in eight successful years hosting the Scottish Open, in front of big and enthusiastic crowds in the pre-open Championship slot the Scottish still holds.

After a five-year gap the resort resumed an annual event with the Scottish PGA Championship that eventually became best known as the Johnnie Walker, lasting from 1999 until 2013.

The Golf Sixes is retained for 2018, although there is no venue yet for the event held for the first time at Centurion Golf Club this year, and there are new events in Belgium, Oman and the Phillippines as well as the Gleneagles event.

There are some losses, however, with the Paul Lawrie Matchplay being discontinued after it had completed a threeyear contracted run.

The Gleneagles event will again mean there are four Scottish stops on the Tour’s 2018 schedule, with the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open at Gullane in July followed immediately by the 147th Open Championship at Carnoustie.

The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship is in its usual slot at St Andrews, Kingsbarns and Carnoustie on October 4-7, the week after the Ryder Cup in Paris.