The bunkered Matchplay Challenge is a unique Ryder Cup-style matchplay competition where Scotland’s leading home-based professionals face their amateur counterparts.

The contest first took place in 2004 at the Macdonald Cardrona Hotel with former Ryder Cup-winning captain Bernard Gallacher leading his Scottish PGA Team to a narrow win over Barclay Howard’s young Scottish Golf Union Team.
At Cardrona, Gallacher famously said the organisation of the event was “better than the Ryder Cup”.

The idea to form the contest was first mooted in the bunkered office by Paul Grant, publisher of Scotland’s No.1 golf magazine. No other competition had ever brought the two golf associations in the ‘Home of Golf’ together before. It would be a first for Scottish golf and, since the inaugural event in 2004, it has been resounding success.

The two-day contest follows a Ryder Cup format where both teams play foursomes and fourballs on the first day followed by singles matches on the final day. The event is preceded by a Pro-Am-Am and concludes with a glittering Gala Dinner and Prize-Giving Ceremony.