Catriona Matthew ‘very honoured’ to win Lifetime Achievement award

• Matthew ‘honoured’ to win Lifetime Achievement award
• She received it in person at a sell-out Scottish Golf Awards
• Russell Knox won Scottish Player of the Year for WGC win

Catriona Matthew has said she was ‘very honoured’ after becoming the first female recipient of the Lifetime Achievement award at a sell-out Scottish Golf Awards.

Scotland’s most successful female professional golfer received a standing ovation from a packed Edinburgh Corn Exchange as she collected the award on a night where the achievements of golfers at all levels of the game were recognised.

“I’m thrilled to receive this award,” Matthew, who is seeking to achieve another career milestone by representing Team GB at the Olympics in Rio this August, said. “Lifetime Achievement makes me feel as though I’m getting towards the end of my career, and I’m absolutely delighted and very honoured, but as long as I’m enjoying it and playing well, I will still be out there.”

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The 46-year-old from North Berwick, who has racked up 11 professional wins and achieved over 100 top tens on the LPGA circuit, added: “It’s difficult to pick one highlight, but I think winning the Ricoh Women’s British Open (at Royal Lytham in 2009), having my husband, Graeme, caddying for me that week, ten weeks after having my second child, was obviously a huge highlight.”

The coveted Player of the Year Award was won by US-based Russell Knox after he became the first Scot to win a World Golf Championship event in China last November, while the Amateur Golfer of the Year gong went to Ewen Ferguson.

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Walker Cup-winning captain Nigel Edwards and three Scots members of his record-breaking side, Ferguson, Grant Forrest and Jack McDonald, were also in attendance to collect the Team of the Year prize, while Nairn Dunbar’s David Torrance – who nurtured Knox in his younger days and has developed both the Boys Order of Merit and Adam Hunter award winner Sandy Scott and Men’s Order of Merit winner Kyle Godsman – won the Coach of the Year honour.

Read more -> David Sneddon :: From the frontline to the fairway

At the grassroots level, Prestonfield’s remarkable work with young golfers in Edinburgh was rewarded with the ClubGolf Junior Club of the Year, with Haddington captain David Drew ensuring a Lothians’ double by winning the Volunteer of the Year. The Inspiration award was emotionally won by David Sneddon, a former army commander who has found a new life in golf at Kingsfield Golf Centre since having his leg amputated, while the inaugural Club Manager of the Year was won by Crail Golfing Society’s David Roy.

Scottish Golf Awards :: Roll of honour

• Amateur Golfer of the Year: Ewen Ferguson
• Seniors Order of Merit: Ronnie Clark
• Shot of the Year: Rickie Fowler
• Boys Order of Merit & Girls Order of Merit: Sandy Scott & Chloe Goadby
• Adam Hunter Award: Sandy Scott
• Junior Club of the Year: Prestonfield GC
• Men’s Order of Merit & Ladies Order of Merit: Kyle Godsman & Shannon McWilliam
• Team of the Year: GB&I Walker Cup team
• Club Manager of the Year: David Roy
• Volunteer of the Year: David Drew
• Inspiration Award: David Sneddon
• Bob Torrance Coach of the Year: David Torrance
• Player of the Year: Russell Knox
• Lifetime Achievement Award: Catriona Matthew

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