Just one of the Shire girls again! Michele Thomson (second from right) with Rachel Polson, Sammy Leslie and Olivia Borwick at McDonald Ellon Golf Club today (Image by Cal Carson Golf Agency).

LET player Michele returns to her Aberdeenshire

girls' roots to support the next generation

Ladies European Tour rookie Michele Thomson returned to her golfing girl "roots" today to donate some prizes and present them at the Aberdeenshire girls' monthly medal at McDonald Ellon Golf Club, the club of which Michele was a member when she won the Scottish women's amateur title at Lossiemouth and represented Great Britain & Ireland in the Curtis Cup match at St Andrews - both in 2008.

"I remember when Michele first started playing in our competitions," said former SLGA chairman Ethel Farquharson who has run the Aberdeenshire girls for the past 20 years.

"I think she was playing off 28 of a handicap and she had been about 13 or 14 years old. So she is a great example for the next generation of Shire girls, showing them what can be achieved."

Michele was at home in Ellon instead of playing in this weekend's LET event in Portugal because she was only a reserve. "Hopefully things will change when the LET re-rank the players who gained their players' cards at the Qualfying School. I've gone well enough to go up about 10 places in the rankings. If that's right, then I would get into all the remaining LET events this season.
"It's been good fun so far. I'm really enjoying. There's a bunch of Scots on the tour but we don't form a 'Scotch Corner' in the clubhouse at each event. A lot of the girls from England, Ireland, Wales and so on, we know well from our amateur days together so everybody is very friendly with everybody else at the tournaments. There are no cliques that I am aware of."
Samantha Leslie (Westhill), who finished second in the recent Munross Trophy at Montrose and who will make her debut for Aberdeenshire in the Northern Division inter-county team championship at Royal Dornoch laster this month, had the best scratch (77) and handicap (77 off 2) scores at the Aberdeenshire girls competition today when the the players got a soaking on the outward half.
Incidentally, it was the second round of golf "Sammy" and Rachel Polson had today. They met each other in a match-play tie in the morning at a different venue.
Former Curtis Cup star and past Scottish champion Joan Rennie, president of Aberdeenshire LCGA, and county captain Fiona Hay, turned up to lend their support to the girls at the Ellon meeting.
Joan even went out to watch the girls in action on the wet course for the best part of two hours.
LEADING SCORES
SCRATCH - Samantha Leslie (Westhill) 79.
HANDICAP - Samantha Leslie (Westhill) (2) 77; Rachel Polson (Peterculter) (6) 79; Olivia Borwick (McDonald Ellon) (21) 83; Nikki Lamond (McDonald Ellon) (9) 86; Kirsten MacCallum (Newburgh) (10) 87; Hannah Bycroft (Alford) (20) 93.