IT'S set to be a fairway to heaven for one of Scotland's church leaders.
The Rt Rev John Chalmers, the golf-mad Moderator of the 2014 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, has been accepted as a volunteer at the Ryder Cup.
Mr Chalmers, 61, who has a handicap of 10, plans to take a short break from his church duties after being accepted as one of 1700 stewards for the event at Gleneagles in September.
He is a member of Pitreavie Golf Club at Dunfermline, and after university took a year out during which he caddied for his friend Bill Lockie, who played on the professional golf circuit.
However, he will have to pay for the privilege of stewarding spectators round the course.
Earlier this year, organisers of the money-spinning event at Gleneagles in Perthshire said volunteers would have to stump up almost £75 if they wanted to offer their free time at the event, which runs from September 26 to 28.
The 2010 Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor in Wales is estimated to have generated £84 million for the local economy.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article