Homeless Eriskay prepare to do battle with Orkney
Added on 20 May 2010
(Article published in the Scotsman newspaper on Thursday 20 May 2010)
AN EXILED golf club will play host for an inter-island contest next month, despite being further from home than their opponents.
Eriskay Golf Club will welcome counterparts from Orkney for the second Battle of the Isles played in a shortened Ryder Cup format on 3 and 4 June.
The event will be held at the Torvean course in Inverness, some 250 miles from Eriskay, which has not had a course for 13 years.
In 1994 locals created a six-hole course from croftland and sand dunes on the Hebridean island. Three years later the course closed for good when a house was built on the fifth hole, but the club continued.
In 2000 it moved its base to Inverness where Willie Rusk, the former Eriskay boatman and co-founder of the golf club, now works at Torvean.
Rusk, who also organised the Battle of the Isles, said:
"The quality of the course and friendliness of the club support the intentions of the match. It provides a fair challenge for all, even if the trees are a bit higher than those on Orkney."