The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Pat Sawers leaves her top golf role
Mrs Pat Sawers has stepped down after seven years as chairwoman of the committee which has responsibility for Carnoustie’s Open Championship golf links.
The current Lord Lieutenant of Angus, Mrs Sawers has a lifelong association with the links, having first picked up a golf club at around the age of just two and played the local courses from a young age.
Her father, Ron Bell, served on the links management committee as greens convener, and worked closely with the links superintendent during the ’80s and early ’90s to bring the courses back to championship condition.
In the top post with Carnoustie Golf Links Management Committee (CGLMC), Mrs Sawers followed in her uncle Dougal Thomson’s footsteps, who also served as chairman in 1979.
She has been a Carnoustie season ticket holder and a member of the oldest functioning ladies golf club in the world, Carnoustie Ladies, since 1997.
Mrs Sawers became captain of the Ladies Club in 2010, joining the CGLMC the same year.
In 2011, she was appointed PR convener, and elected vicechairwoman in 2012. She was appointed to lead CGLMC in 2014 and helped establish Carnoustie Golf Links as a charitable trust.
Since then it has contributed £320,000 to community causes.
In her quest for Carnoustie to become world-leading, Mrs Sawers oversaw the appointment of a chief executive in September 2017, while also delivering a £6 million project to extend and upgrade the golf centre.
It saw the opening of
Links House in April 2018 and the pinnacle of her tenure with the hosting of the 147th Open Championship.
The eighth Open to be staged in the Angus town, it was played in heatwave conditions and a global television audience of more than 600 million watched Francesco Molinari become the first Italian to win the
coveted Claret Jug. The event also saw Mrs Sawers become the first chairwoman of an Open Championship venue.
In November 2018, she received a special recognition award for services to golf tourism.
Retired Forfar dentist Colin Yule has succeeded Mrs Sawers in the chairman’s role.