Two new appointments have been made by the Royal & Ancient Golf Club (R&A) to St Andrews Links Trust, one as a Trustee and one as a member of the Links Management Committee (LMC).
Neil Crichton (62) has been nominated as a Trustee from 1 January. He replaces Robin Waddell who has served three terms of three years as a Trustee.
Nominated to the LMC as a replacement for Dennis Matthews, who has come to the end of his four year term, is Dr John Mills (64) who has been an R&A member for 24 years.
Mr Crichton was chairman of the R&A’s General Committee for three years from 2001 to 2003 and has been a member of both the Club’s Rules and Championship Committees. A former qualified referee, he was also chairman of the World Amateur Golf Council.
He has been a member of the R&A for almost 40 years and is also a member of several golf clubs in the UK and the USA. He was the runner-up, with Eduardo Romero, in the team event of the Dunhill Links Championship in 2002.
"I am really looking forward to joining the Trust", said Mr Crichton. "It is an organisation unique in the world of golf, with an extraordinarily difficult job to do balancing the interests of the local clubs, visitors, the R&A and the town’s tourism sector."
Mr Crichton was a solicitor in Edinburgh for 30 years and currently holds the judicial appointment of Auditor to the Court of Session. He is also a Governor of Fettes College Trust. He lives in Edinburgh.
Dr Mills was born in Dundee and is a graduate of St Andrews University. A retired gynaecologist who has lived in St Andrews for 25 years, Dr Mills started playing golf as a student and joined the New Golf Club of St Andrews more than 30 years ago. He has served on the R&A’s Club Committee and recently took over as R&A Chief Marshal. He is married with three grown-up children.
Dr Mills said, "I am relishing the opportunity to join the Trust at such an exciting time with the seventh course coming to fruition and the Golf Practice Centre extension going ahead. These will both be major developments for golf in St Andrews and for the country as a whole."
Notes to editors
St Andrews Links Trustees and members of the Links Management Committee have a duty to act independently in matters concerning the Trust and must not act as representatives of any outside organisation, including that which nominated them. There are eight Trustees and eight members of the committee.
St Andrews Links Trust is a charitable organisation responsible for the management and maintenance of the Links courses at St Andrews, including the famous Old Course, which hosted this year’s Open Championship. The Trust was established by an Act of Parliament in 1974. It employs more than 200 permanent staff and seasonal workers during the high season. It manages a number of additional facilities including two clubhouses, a golf practice centre and two shops.
More than 200,000 rounds are played over six public courses, which feature two additional championship courses (the New and the Jubilee), two 18-hole courses (the Eden and the Strathtyrum) and a nine-hole course (the Balgove). A seventh course is currently under construction on a site south-east of St Andrews.
For more information visit www.standrews.org.uk.
Contact:
Mike Woodcock
Communications manager
St Andrews Links Trust
01334 466610
E-mail mwoodcock@standrews.org.uk
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