Golfing called to be made a degree choice in Scotland
Chic Brodie calls for the Scottish sport to become a degree course in its home country.
Chic Brodie, an amateur golfer and member of Scottish parliament, has called for Golfing Degrees to be offered in Scottish Universities. He also believes that Scottish students should be funded to attend the Golfing course that already exists at The University of Birmingham.
Birmingham University is the only Uni in the UK which offers the three-year course, recognised by the Professional Gold Association, which gives graduates a “gold standard” of education and has a 97% employment rate. In 2011, it was recognised by KPMG (a careers service) as the best golf training programme in the world.
The course takes in students from around 24 countries, and those who are members of the Economic Community receive funding to attend. In Scotland however, it is viewed as a distance learning course and no student funding is offered.
Scotland is famous world-wide for its golf courses and it has been estimated that the sports brings as much as £1M to the national economy each year. It’s even thought that the Gleneagles Rider Cup will provide as much as £100M for Scotland.
The current Great Britain and Ireland team for the Walker cup has no Scottish Members and Brodie, backed by Steve Pauling of the Scottish Golf Union, hopes that a course like that of Birmingham would result in a rebirth of Scottish golf and a new generation of professional golfers.
The Education Secretary, Michael Russel, has said that a decision like this would have to be made by the Universities and that currently, no discussions were underway.
It looks like keen golfers at Edinburgh Uni will just have to stick to pub golf for now. Tee up, guys.