04/01/2017

Martin Whitelaw steps down

EPPA/FIPPA Secretary General resigns

Martin Whitelaw has announced his resignation from the post of EPPA/FIPPA Secretary General. Martin was a Board Member of FIPPA from 2006 to 2010 and took over as Secretary General in 2010.

Modern international Pitch and Putt owes much to Martin's vision and drive. Initially introduced to Pitch and Putt at his Irish boarding school in the 1960s, Martin worked at his father's course. That was Lough Ennell in Co. Westmeath, Ireland. It was there that Martin developed a keen interest in course design and maintenance. Such interests were to serve him well when he began to construct his own course at Solius, Catalonia in the late 1980s. 

So successful was Solius (Catalonia's first Pitch and Putt course) that a number of other courses were built in Catalonia in the early 1990s. Martin and the other course owners agreed to form the Associacio Catalana de Pitch and Putt (ACPP) in 1993. As the prime mover in the initiative, Martin was elected the first President of the fledgling organisation. While President, Martin invited the Pitch and Putt Union of Ireland to send a team to Solius in 1997 to play Catalonia. That first international challenge led to a European championship in 1999. The European Pitch and Putt Association was founded shortly after.

Martin left the ACPP Presidency in 1998 but continued to serve the organisation and its close associate the FCPP for many years. He was honoured in Catalonia for his services to Pitch and Putt in 2004. Solius closed in 2005 but the legacy of that course lives on in Catalonia and around the world.

Martin is taking a sabbatical and may return to international Pitch and Putt administration in the future.