East-West, home's best for Mhairi McKay

FROM THE SCOTSMAN.COM WEBSITE
By MARTIN DEMPSTER
While this week's Aberdeen Ladies Scottish Open offers a glimpse of the new wave of talent in the host country - the likes of Vikki Laing, Krystle Caithness, Carly Booth, Kylie Walker, Kelsey MacDonald and Sally Watson are all in the field - a member of the old guard is hoping to make her presence felt when the event tees off today on the Fidra course at Archerfield Links.
Fuelled by memories of playing in front of home galleries in the McDonald's WPGA Championship of Europe at Gleneagles just over a decade ago, Mhairi McKay, who has flown the flag for Scottish golf so admirably over the past 20 years along with Catriona Matthew and Janice Moodie, is determined to be a contender for the £25,000 top prize in East Lothian.
The 35-year-old, a former Australian Open champion, has seen playing chances reduced this year as a result of her ranking dropping on the back of becoming a mum for the first time 15 months ago, but finished in the top 40 in last month's US Women's Open and admits she is relishing her return to home soil.
"Some of the things I have been working on now seem to be clicking and I am striking the ball as well as I ever have," said McKay. She lives in America with her husband Dave and son Angus but has been preparing for a tournament that is being presented by EventScotland over at Turnberry, where she played as an amateur and where her parents live.
"It is going to be nice to play in front of a home crowd again and to win the Scottish Open would probably make me the happiest woman in the world."
While Matthew and Moodie are both playing in the Safeway Classic - one of the biggest tournaments of the season on the LPGA Tour - in Oregon this week, the 54-hole event on the outskirts of Gullane offers McKay and the others in a sizeable home contingent an opportunity to show Scottish women's golf is in good health.
Laing, the four-time Scottish girls' champion who looked destined to go all the way to the top after shining on the US college circuit during her spell at the University of California, is starting to make headway after turning her attention to the Ladies European Tour, where Caithness was also catching the eye earlier in the season before going off the boil a bit in recent weeks.
"Catriona, Janice and myself are still out there week in, week out but, at the same time, it is nice to know that there are younger players coming through behind us," noted McKay, who was disappointed not to earn an exemption into the final qualifying for the recent Ricoh Women's British Open at Royal Birkdale.
"Vikki, for instance, is a fabulous player and, though she has maybe been hoping the results would have come sooner than they have, I think she is going to go from strength to strength as playing in Europe at the moment is a confidence builder for her.