CARLY BOOTH FOR FLORIDA

CARLY JOINING SALLY AT LEADBETTER
GOLF ACADEMY IN FLORIDA


There will be two Scots girls – Sally Watson from South Queensferry and Comrie’s Carly Booth - enrolling at the David Leadbetter Golf Academy in Bradenton, Florida at the end of this month.
We knew that Edinburgh businessman Graham Watson had fixed up for Sally (15), last year’s Scottish Under-18 girls match-play champion, to go to the academy.
Now comes the news that Carly has gained a full scholarship – not many of them are granted – to the same establishment which combines education with golf, i.e. lessons in the morning and golf in the afternoon.
The move to Florida was clinched when Phil Parkin, the former British amateur champion who is one of David Leadbetter’s top coaches, visited the Booth family’s farm in the Perthshire hills and played a few holes with Carly over the course created by her father Wally.
“She’s phenomenal,” said Parkin. “She will be mixing with very good golfers in her own age group and the golf academy is the perfect place for her.”
Carly, who has a handicap of +1.2, will return to Britain to play for Europe in the Under-16s Junior Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor in mid-September. She is the only British or Irish player in the mixed squad of boys and girls, having earned automatic selection by finishing third in the girls’ section of the European Young Masters in Austria last month.