LESLEY ATKINS HAS HONOUR OF HITTING THE FIRST BALL IN THE BRITISH CHAMPIONSHIP - AT 6.45am!

     A view of one of the Machynys lakes that make it different from most links courses.
                               Image by Cal Carson Golf Agency

COLIN FARQUHARSON REPORTS 
FROM MACHYNYS, SOUTH WALES

Gullane's Lesley Atkins, former Scottish Under-18 girls champion
, will have the honour of driving the first ball off the tee in the 111 staging of the British women's open amateur golf championship tomorrow morning at the Machynys Peninsula on the South Wales coast near Llanelli.
But the 18-year-old has to pay a high price for the honour ... she is 
due on the tee at 06.45am!
Craigielaw's Jane Turner is not far behind her, in the second threesome off the tee, in fact, at 06.56am.
And other Scots who will not get a long lie in bed are Rachael Watton (Mortonhall), off at 07.18am and Eilidh Briggs (Kilmacolm) at 07.51am.
It's a bit warmer down here in South Wales than in Scotland - 18.5 degrees at 6pm according to the dashboard on my hire car.
There are eight Scots in all in the star-studded field of 141 (three Germans did not turn up and it was impossible to call up reserves in time to fill the spaces -  who will tee it up tomorrow in the first qualifying round of the British women's open amateur golf championship at the Jack Nicklaus-designed course.
The odds against the first Scottish winner since Alison Rose at Cruden Bay in 1997 coming from North of the Border are higher than 50-1 and that is no disrespect to Lesley Atkins, Eilidh Briggs Rachael Watton, Gabrielle MacDonald (Craigielaw), Hannah McCook (Grantown on Spey), Alyson McKechin (Elderslie), Jane Turner and Lauren Whyte (St Regulus).
The fact of the matter is that nine of the top 30 from the women's world rankings are in the field, headed by defending champion Stephanie Meadow from Northern Ireland via Alabama University at No 6 and Georgia Hall (Remedy Oak) at No 7 .Carnousie-born Susan Simpson, the Ladies Golf Union's Tournament Director, reckons that the winner will come from the ranks of the straight drivers and very good putters because "The rough is quite penal if you miss the fairway and the greens have subtle undulations."
Managing director Jim Anderson, one of the joint owners of the course, which cost  £3.5million to build eight years ago, feels that
Susan's selection of tees for this particular tournament - most Machynys holes have a choice of five teeing areas - for a 6,290yd, par 72-course will test the amateurs far more than when the Ladies European Tour staged some pro events at the venue in its early years.
Pro golf organisers like their players to have low scores, good headlines in the papers, etc.
But the Ladies Golf Union aim to have the best player stepping up to receive the magnificent championship trophy  at the end of the week and to achieve that they set out difficult but not unfair courses.
Golf course developers are often castigated for "spoiling" areas of natural beauty. That certainly cannot be the case at Machynys where the project has transformed a patch of wet lands, harnessing the water to have 25 acres of salt and fresh lakes, a feature which you won't see on long-established links courses. The other half of the course used to have a clay pit and a brickworks. Bricks are made of clay, before you ask.
After two rounds of stroke-play, the leading 64 players will go forward to match-play, culminating in an 18-hole final on Saturday.
After years of Continental domination - sometimes all eight quarter-finals coming from over there - Britain has produced the the winner of this tournament for the past three years: Kelly Tidy (Royal Birkdale), who beat Kelsey MacDonald (Nairn Dunbar) in the 2010 final at Ganton, Lauren Taylor (Woburn), the youngest ever at the age of 16 at Royal Portrush two years ago, and Stephanie Meadow last year at Carnoustie.
Kelly Tidy turned pro but has disappearned from the golfing scene. Lauren Taylor and, of course, Stephanie are in this week's field.

      A view of the 18th green at Machynys