Caithness class ... Krystle beginning


to sparkle on Ladies European Tour

From the www.herald.co.uk/sport website
By DOUGLAS LOWE
Anyone wondering about a successor to the hugely successful Scottish trio of Catriona Matthew, Janice Moodie and Mhairi McKay who have shone on the LPGA circuit in the US, might wish to keep an eye on Krystle Caithness, a young woman who is going places fast (pictured right by Cal Carson Golf Agency).
The 20-year-old Ladies European Tour rookie is hailed as the first woman professional to be produced at St Andrews and her fifth place finish in last week's Irish Open has propelled her to No.16 on the order of merit and straight into this month's Women's British Open at Royal Lytham.
With the added security of an £18,000 prize jingling merrily in her bank account that's not bad going after just five tournaments as a professional on a circuit she views as a stepping stone to her ultimate dream of the lucrative LPGA Tour.
Nothing is certain in the fickle world of tournament golf but there is a gentle air of expectation about this polite, unassuming and hard-working member of the St Regulus club in the town that makes you feel that she will make the grade almost as a matter of inevitability.
Although delighted that her game stood up under the stresses of the closing stages of the Irish Open, there was no sense of being overawed, because she has seen it and done it as an amateur including a Curtis Cup appearance over the Old Course at St Andrews last year.
"It was the best performance I have had all year and it felt good to see my name up there on the leaderboard," she reflected prior to her daily practice routine at the St Andrews Links Trust golf centre and then a game over her favourite Jubilee Course.
"I just treated it as a round of golf even though there were lots of spectators and television cameras.
I have toured on the amateur circuit with the Scotland and then the GB&I squads and there's not a great deal of difference. Then I had a year at the University of Georgia."
She cut that sojourn short, preferring a return to Scotland to prepare for tour school to the alternative of US college golf, but the exercise was beneficial with the year-long season in Georgia accelerating her progress.
"I really enjoyed it," she said.
"The facilities and the competition were amazing and I really feel it brought my game on. It was a hard decision to come back but I wanted to prepare for the European tour. Eventually I would like to be playing in America but I wanted to play in Europe first for experience. It's close to home and I'm learning to do everything on my own before I go back.
"I'm also helped a lot by my coach, Garry Forrester. I've been with him for a year-and-a-half and he's the best coach I've ever had."
She is missing this week's tournament in Norway to enjoy time at home with sister Cherie who played a key role in introducing Krystle to golf and has just had a baby, but returns in a fortnight at the Spanish Open. She is waiting to hear if she has a place in the Evian Masters the following week, but the introduction of Lytham to the schedule has given her a big boost.
"I'm really looking forward to it," she said. "I played at Sunningdale last year as an amateur. It was the first pro tournament I had played in. I missed the cut but it was a good learning experience," she said.
Caithness, who is Kirkcaldy-born and lives in Cupar, has done without a caddie so far to keep costs down, but she did have father Jim helping out in Ireland under strict instructions of "no talking and no advice about clubs".
"He did as I asked him," she laughed, "and there is no doubt that he helped. I took him over as a birthday present and instead of him walking round and watching I asked him to pull my trolley. It's not unusual on the LET to do it yourself but I'd love to have a full-time caddie eventually. It makes a huge difference."


+Reproduced by kind permission of the Herald Sports Editor and Douglas Lowe.