Airdrie owner Tom Wotherspoon will be involved in a different ball game after his M&H Logistics firm was unveiled as the new sponsors of the Scottish PGA Championship.

Wotherspoon, who bought a majority stake in the Diamonds last year, was convinced to tee-up a golfing deal by former SFL chief executive David Longmuir, who is now working in a commercial role with the Professional Golfers’ Association.

The new-five year deal for the Scottish PGA Championship, which boasts a roll of honour including Sandy Lyle, Bernard Gallacher, Sam Torrance and Paul Lawrie, has given the Tartan Tour’s flagship a timely boost as it prepares to celebrate its 100th staging this October.

Wotherspoon said: “This is our first move away from football sponsorship and in making this decision we had to choose the correct partner. We had thought about athletics but after a series of talks over a period of six months, David presented us with some very dynamic ideas and we found that golf was a very good fit.”

Former Open champ Paul Lawrie was on hand to promote the new deal at Gleneagles yesterday but the two-time winner of the Scottish PGA Championship won’t be able to compete in October’s showpiece.

One of the reasons is that he could be undergoing surgery for a long-term foot injury that has niggled away at him for almost four years.

Lawrie, 47, said: “As soon as my season is over I’m going to go in and have a small operation on it. I have a bone spur on my foot which has caused a cyst and the jagged bit of bone is hitting the cyst all the time. Over the last three or four years it’s been slowly getting worse to the point where I need to do something about it. The surgeon says that after a couple of months I’ll be right as rain.”