WATSON GIRLS BOUND FOR AMERICA

WATSON GIRLS BOTH BOUND
FOR UNITED STATES

South Queensferry teenager Sally Watson, at 14 the youngest ever winner of the Scottish Under-18 girls championship last year, is moving to Bradenton, Florida next month (August) to enrol as a scholarship student in the IMG/David Leadbetter Golf Academy.
Leadbetter, arguably the best known golf coach over the past couple of decades, now has more than 20 golf academies worldwide.
Sally has played more competitive golf in the United States than in her native Scotland this year. She recently reached the last 16 of the US Girls’ Junior Championship after visiting America in June to win one of the qualifying events. Miss Watson also played in the Callaway World Junior Championship in San Diego, California earlier this month and finished a creditable 21st with a one-over-par total for the 72-hole stroke-play event.
Sally’s United States Golf Association handicap is now +3 which makes her one of the highest-rated Scottish female amateurs of any age.
She did not play in the Scottish women’s amateur championship at Dunbar this year because of school examinations and she did not defend her Scottish Under-18 girls title at Peebles last week because it clashed with the US Girls’ Championship.

Later this week 15-year-old Sally and another exciting Scottish girl prospect, 14-year-old Carly Booth from Comrie, will be representing Scotland in the girls’ section of the European Young Masters for Under-16s at Styrian Golf Club, Murhof in Austria. Selection for the European team for this year’s Junior Ryder Cup match against the Americans will be based on performances in the Young Masters.

Sally’s older sister, 17-year-old Rebecca, who caddied for her in the US girls’ open championship but is a Scottish girl international in her own right, has verbally committed to join the University of Tennessee on a full scholarship in the autumn of 2007. Tennessee has been ranked in the top 10 of all US women's college golf programmes for the past two years and Rebecca will be their sole scholarship recruit in 2007.

Commenting on these moves, Sally's father, Edinburgh businessman, Graham Watson said: “We are excited at the golf and academic opportunities which lie ahead for both Sally and Rebecca in the States. The standard of female junior and college golf in the USA is very high at present and we support the girls in their desire to practise and play, usually in the sunshine, with the world's best young golfers on a daily basis.
“We spent three years as a family living in San Francisco until 2003 and have continued to travel across the Atlantic regularly to visit with the girls' principal coach at the Leadbetter Academy, Kevin Collins, so the girls are both very familiar with the US lifestyle.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the best golfers of the next 10 years will be those who are used to travelling internationally to play in the wide variety of conditions which exist around the world.
“With the LPGA enjoying huge success at present, where it is now more popular than the men's Champions (Seniors) Tour, and with the increasing globalisation of the women's game, now is the right time to be setting the foundations for more Scottish involvement in the game at this level.”