It's Megan Briggs v Louise Kenney

for the Scottish championship

Two first-time finalists, 19-year-old Megan Briggs from Kilmacolm, and 26-year-old Louise Kenney from the Pitreavie club, Dunfermline will contest the 18-hole climax to the 95th Scottish women's closed amateur golf championship over the Southerness links on the north shore of the Solway Firth tomorrow morning.
Strathclyde University student Briggs, the No 4 seed, won her semi-final at the 19th against Jane Turner (Mortonhall), the 19-year-old British Universities champion and No 8 qualifier.
Primary schoolteacher Kenney, the No 10 qualifier, beat her Fife county team-mate, Elaine Moffat (St Regulus), the No 22 qualifier, by 5 and 4 in the second semi-final.
Both Briggs, who has a handicap of one, and Kenney, who has a +1 rating, played for Scotland in last year's women's home internationals at Wrexham. But neither is a member of the Great Britain & Ireland short leet for the Vagliano Trophy match against the Continent of Europe at Hamburg in July. Still a good performance by either at next month's British women's open amateur championship at Harlech could still gain them admission to skipper Mary McKenna's squad of nine.
It will not be a first time in a national match-play final for either player. Briggs lost to Carly Booth in the final of the Scottish Under-18 girls championship at Peterhead in 2007.
Kenney won the same title in 2000, beating Carnoustie's Fiona Gilbert in the final.
Louise, who spent four years on the US college circuit and was rated one of the best golfers ever to have played for Iowa State University, was roughly level par in her victory over Moffat, who won the Scottish women's championship at North Berwick in 1998 and is now in her 40s. A good effort by Elaine to get as far as the last four.
A double bogey 6 at Moffat at the sixth opened the door for Kenney to go one up, a lead she doubled at the next when her opponent, in trouble, conceded. Moffat had more bogey trouble to lose the 12th, 13th and 14th and the match.
Kenney was roughly level par for the holes played. She had played the best golf by anyone in the morning quarter-finals, being four under par in knocking out the No 2 seed, Kylie Walker (Buchanan Castle) by 3 and 2.
Louise had been one down after 11 holes. She then transformed the situation with a grandstand finish, winning the next four holes in a row with a par-eagle-eagle-par run which propelled her three holes ahead after 15. A half in 5 at the next ended the match, with Kylie wondering what had hit her!
Briggs has been Renfrewshire women's champion for the past four years, even though she is still only 20. Her match-play experience from events like that pulled her through against Turner who was two up at the turn.
Briggs won the 11th, 12th and 13th with a birdie-par-birdie run to take a one-hole lead but she bogeyed the 15th to be pulled back to all square. From there in, it was a case of who would have the strongest nerve. The 16th, 17th and 18th holes were halved in par before Megan was conceded the 19th and a place in the final.
Briggs, who had been two under par in beating fellow international Laura Murray in the morning, was roughly one over par in the semi-final.
The final will tee off at 9am on Saturday morning.
The Clark Rosebowl final was won by 18-year-old Scotland girl international Sammy Vass, the North of Scotland girls champion from Tain. She beat Louise Fraser (Kingsknowe) by 4 and 3, having been three up after 10.
Sammy, the daughter of a former Scotland junior international, Margaret (Magi) Russell, will enrol at the University of Central Florida in the autumn for four years. So, the likelihood, this will be her last Scottish women's championshipuntil 2014.