No Carly but still quality field

for Under-21 girls at Powfoot

By COLIN FARQUHARSON

The Scottish Under-21 girls' open stroke-play amateur golf championship has produced two runaway victories in the past two years.
Krystle Caithness (St Regulus) won the title by 11 shots with an astonishing 20-under-par performance for the 54 holes at Stirling in 2006.
Comrie's Carly Booth had nine shots to spare when she took the Under-21s title with a three-under-par total at Auchterarder last year.
Carly, who retained her Scottish Under-18 girls' match-play title at Alyth last week, can't be in two places at once so this week she is defending the European Young Masters' girls' title in Chantilly, France instead of the Scottish junior crown at Powfoot.
There will, however, be two Curtis Cup players in what is a field of quality on the shores of the Solway Firth.
Krystle, pictured above with her Curtis Cup "warpaint" (Cal Carson Golf Agency, all rights reserved) is joined by GB&I team-mate Michele Thomson from the McDonald, Ellon club. Krystle, 19, and 15-year-old German challenger Kristina Kaisler from Munich are the backmarkers in the field, both playing off +2.
Michele has a +1 rating and so too have Roseanne Niven (Crieff), Pamela Pretswell (Bothwell Castle) and Laura Murray from Alford.
On top of that there are four scratch players in the field - Rachael Livingstone (Musselburgh Old), Katy McNicoll (Carnoustie), Megan Briggs (Kilmacolm) and Jane Turner (Craigielaw).
It's 27 years since an English player - Kitrina Douglas - won the championship. Their best chance of ending the lean years would appear to be Holly Clyburn, a one-handicapper from Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire.