FIONA LIDDELL FLIES OVER FROM GERMANY WITH HER PRO DAD

By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Colin@scottishgolfview.com
The 98th Scottish women's amateur championship - hope the SLGA have something special planned for the Centenary one! - tees off at Tain Golf Club tomorrow morning.
The competitor who has travelled the farthest to be in the field is Germany-based Fiona Liddell, whose father Stephen is the club professional at Schloss Vornholz.
The pair flew from Germany to Edinburgh earlier today and then made the long journey up to Tain.
Fiona, who has taken out junior membership of Glenbervie Golf Club, did not have time to play a full practice round
She did not do too badly on her last trip to Scotland - finishing joint fourth, only four shots behind winner Gabriella Cowley (West Essex) with rounds of 73 and 77 for 150 in the Scottish Under-16 girls' open stroke play championship at Strathmore Golf Club, Alyth last month.
Fiona is definitely one to keep an eye on.
Strictly speaking, Rachel Polson (Deeside) and Sammy Vass (Tain) have made the longest journeys but they were coming home to Scotland anyway from their US colleges. Aberdeen-based Rachel has just completed her first year at Florida Tech while Sammy is a third-year student at Gardner-Webb University, North Carolina.
Rachel had at least one very good performance in her rookie season on the US women's college circuit. It will be interesting to see if she can build on that - and wouldn't the "Scottish" be a good place to start?
If local knowledge is worth a hole or two in match-play, then Sammy Vass could be in for a long run in the championship. Her name figures prominently on the clubhouse scoreboard as a previous winner of the Tain women's club championship - 2008, 2009, 20011 to be precise.
In the 2008 Scottish championship at Lossiemouth, Kelsey MacDonald (Nairn Dunbar) was the No 1 seed and Sammy Vass was the last of the 32 qualifiers. Thay meant they faced each other in the first round of the match-play ... and Sammy scored a shock win.
Sammy Vass's mother, Magi was a Scotland junior international as "Margaret Russell" and is now the secretary at Tain Golf Club.
Eleanor Tunn (Reay), who reached the semi-finals of the Northern Counties championship at Elgin, is playing only in the two qualifying rounds because she starts her Higher exams on Thursday. With no pressure on her to score well, you just know that she is going have a couple of rounds that would have got her into the matchplay but for her exams.
Eleanor, only 16 years old and with a handicap of three, doesn't have to travel as far to this event as she normally has to ... only something like 70 or 80 miles! But she is used to this trip because Tain GC pro Stuart Morrison is her coach.
The players with the best 32 aggregates after the Tuesday-Wednesday stroke-play rounds will qualiffy for the championship match-play. The next best 16 will contest the Clark Rosebowl.
+The smallish field has shrunk to 65 with former champion Elaine Moffat (St Regulus) and Gillian Monteith (Portpatrick Dunskey) dropping out.
 Gillian Monteith, a +1 player, has been recruited by the Ladies Golf Union to their organisational team for a busy summer ahead, starting with the Curtis Cup match at The Nairn GC from June 8-10.