DON'T be puzzled if the name of Carus Green Golf Club flashes on to your television screen while watching coverage of the 2007 European Seniors Tour - it's true, they have a professional playing among golf's elite.

Professional Tim Rastell is representing the Kendal club while he takes part in this year's Tour.

Tim, who is based in Macclesfield and was head professional at De Vere Mottram Hall in Manchester for many years, has long had strong connections with the area and is well in the local pro-ams and charity days.

He agreed to represent Carus Green for two years as he tried to qualify for the Tour, supported in this aim by local businessmen including Adrian Morriss, George Wilson and Jim Mitchell.

And the move paid off spectacularly for the club when Tim, aged 50 this year, finished ninth out of hundreds of potential qualifiers over six rounds in Portugal last November, gaining full playing rights on this year's Tour.

He played his first event last month at the Royal Westmoreland in Barbados, where he came 32nd, and this week he was playing in Turkey, and events in diverse places such as Ireland, Bahrain, Italy and the UK are to follow.

It has sparked off huge interest from Carus Green members in his progress, details of which be found on a special information board in the driving range reception area at the club, off Burneside Road.

And Carus manager Graham Curtin, one of Tim's backers, will be caddying in a number of events this year.

He said: "Tim is an absolute gentlemen and an exceptional golfer. I'm delighted he has chosen to play out of Carus and he will be a superb ambassador for the club.

"The whole concept of Tim playing on Tour had added a genuine buzz of excitement here, to see if he can take on the likes of Sam Torrance, Nick Faldo and other stars.

"Carus is going from strength to strength at the moment, with a new shop and other improvements.

"The addition of our own Tour player is fantastic - watch out for him on television."

Rastell, who is a third professional at the club along with Dave Turner and Nick Barron, is keen to do his part to promote the club and said: "The support from everyone at Carus has been overwhelming. The whole club is behind me and I hope I can do them proud with some good results.

"Carus is such a friendly place. Whenever I go there you can feel the atmosphere is great and the range must be one of the best practice facilities in the country.

"I've got Carus Green on my tour bag, my car and all my tour shirts - the one place I want to see it is the Final Leaderboard."