KELSEY MacDONALD ADDS SCOTTISH

WOMEN’S TITLE TO UNDER-21 CROWN

By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Curtis Cup first reserve Kelsey MacDonald became a double golf national champion at Craigielaw Links today.
The 19-year-old Stirling University student and Nairn Dunbar Golf Club member, holder of the Scottish Under-21 women’s title for the past two years, beat Louise Kenney (Pitreavie), a 27-year-old Dunfermline nursery school teacher, by 5 and 3 in the final of the 97th Scottish women’s (closed) amateur golf championship.
On a gloriously sunny and warm day on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth – at the end of a gloriously sunny week, MacDonald played good golf at the gallop, although not quite the peak play of Friday’s semi-finals when she was five under par in beating Laura Murray (Alford) only by 2 and 1.
The finalists were through the turn, despite the heat, in 1hr 22min with Kelsey already four holes up, having won the first three holes and the seventh .
“I got a terrible, awkward lie in a bunker from my first drive of the day … and that really was just the start of my troubles. My luck didn’t get any better. I just never got going” said a tearful Louise Kenney, who had felt she did not do herself justice in last year’s final in which she lost by 4 and 3 to Megan Briggs (Kilmacolm).
It has to be said Miss Kenney, a former Scottish girls’ match-play champion who had the best tournament score of four-under-par 69 in the qualifying rounds at Craigielaw and was the No 4 seed, again failed to produce, when the chips were down, the classy performance of which she is well capable.
Kenney won only one hole in the one-sided final – the 14th – which took her 2hr 5min of play to achieve, and that only delayed the inevitable. Kelsey had gone five up with her second birdie of the round at the 12th
Four down with four to play, Kenney after yet another visit to a bunker, conceded the the 15th hole, the match and the Scottish title to her younger opponent. It was all over in 2hr 26min. The Fifer was a disappointing five over par for the holes played to MacDonald’s level par. That just about summed up the difference between their play.
Former Scottish champion Elaine Moffat, caddieing for Kenney, felt the links, after days of heat and no rain, were at their bounciest of the week, helping to explain why Louise's approach shots so often finished up through the back of the green.
“The day didn’t start well for me. I was up a 3am this morning when the fire alarm went off in our Travel Lodge at Musselburgh,” said Kelsey, “but that’s all forgotten now. I’m absolutely delighted. It probably won’t sink in for a while but the disappointment of not making the Great Britain & Ireland team for next month’s Curtis Cup match in the United States is all behind me now.
“I didn’t make any mistakes, just playing steadily although not as well as I did in the semi-finals but it would have been hard to repeat that birdie blitz the following morning.“
SGU national junior coach Spencer Henderson, who coaches both Kelsey and Louise – and is Miss Kenney’s boyfriend into the bargain, obviously did not know whether to laugh or cry when the final was over. On the one hand he was pleased for winner MacDonald but on the other his heart was bleeding for Kenney.
“It was great for both of them to make the Scottish championship final because they both taken some hard knocks this season in not being selected for the Curtis Cup and getting close to winning in other tournaments,” said Henderson.
*The various SLGA teams, announced at the presentation of prizes, will be on display on this website on Sunday morning.