STAND BY FOR THE MOST OPEN OF
SCOTTISH WOMEN'S AMATEUR
CHAMPIONSHIPS AT BARASSIE



Says COLIN FARQUHARSON

The 104th Scottish women's amateur golf championship, which tees off at Kilmarnock Barassie Golf Club on Tuesday, could be one of the most open for many years, open in the sense that any one of a dozen players could be holding that magnificent trophy aloft at the conclusion of Saturday's 18-hole final.
The pity is that it could and should be a much stronger field than the 70-odd who will be in action in two qualifying rounds over Tuesday and Wednesday to produce 32 qualifiers for the championship match-play and 16 qualifiers for the Clark Rosebowl.
The fact of the matter is that in third week of May, this year and every year, a galaxy of young Scots stars are not free to enter the championship because of American college or Scottish schools commitments.
For instance, only four of the Scotland squad of eight who slammed England, Ireland and Wales to win last summer’s British girls’ international team championship are in the field.
A year or two ago, the R&A moved the dates of the British men’s amateur championship so that those at college in America could play in it. There is a strong case to be made out for the Scottish Ladies Golfing Association also shifting the dates of their premier championship to a later date.
Had they been able to do so this year, then the Scottish Under-18 match-play champion, Roseanne Niven, a student at the University of California Berkeley, Gemma Webster (Ohio State University) and talented youngsters Sally Watson and Carly Booth, both at academies in the States, would have been home in time to compete for their national title.
A switch to say June would also avoid the present clash with Scottish school examinations which this week rule out 16-year-old Kesley MacDonald – like Roseanne, Sally and Carly, a member of the winning Scotland girls team of 2006 – and Pamela Pretswell, recent teenager winner of the Lanarkshire women’s county title.
CROWDED CALENDAR
The SLGA powers-that-be will say, of course, that there is no room for manoeuvre these days because the golfing calendar is so crowded in June-July-August. But, as the R&A proved, where there's a will, there's a way.
Scottish Under-21 champion Krystle Caithness, pictured above, who helped Britain to win the Commonwealth Tournament in South Africa last week for the first time since 1991, has not been able to play in the “Scottish” since 2004 because of exams.
And this will be the Cellardyke 18-year-old’s last chance to become Scottish women’s champion until 2012. Krystle starts a four-year golf scholarship at Georgia University in the autumn.
Hopefully, this will be the most “open” of Scottish match-play championships in contrast to recent years when Anne Laing has played in every final since 2002 and two before that even.
Martine Pow, who celebrates her 42nd birthday on Tuesday, beat Anne in last year’s final at Dunbar. Both are in the field again this week and they will have something to say about the hope and expectation that “the old order changeth.”
Krystle reached the match-play stages in 2003 when she was only 14. She is entitled to start joint favourite with a “new,” relaxed Heather MacRae who won the Welsh women’s open stroke-play a couple of weekends ago, a couple of years after her triumph in the British women’s stroke-play at Nairn.
And third favourite could well be Jenna Wilson (Strathaven), a +2 player like Krystle and Heather, and certainly capable of winning her way through to Saturday's final.
UP-AND-COMING TEENAGERS
Regrettable though it is that Sally Watson, Carly Booth and Roseanne Niven are not playing this week, there are enough up-and-coming teenagers to spice up the proceedings.
From the North-east there are two young scratch players, Michele Thomson, the new Aberdeenshire women’s champion, and Laura Murray, whom she beat in that final. Michele lost in the second round of the match-play to Heather MacRae 12 months ago at Dunbar. For Laura, a student at Robert Gordon University, this is her "Scottish" debut. She did win the Scottish schoolgirls championship at St Andrews Bay in 2005.
Then there’s Megan Briggs from Kilmacolm, winner of the Renfrewshire women’s county title two years in a row. And Jane Turner from Mortonhall is getting better every season.
There has been some mild criticism of the SLGA in recent years for failing to keep up with the fact that female amateur players - just like their male counterparts - hit the ball a good deal farther than they did 30 or 40 years ago ... and that the "Scottish" should always been contested over a course of more than 6,000 yards. This has not always been the case.
So hats off to the organisers for stretching the Barassie ladies' course to 6,215yd with a par of 75 to this championship. Yellow tees are being used at the second, sixth, ninth and 10th and a white tee at the fourth. At the 13th, the tee-ing area will be 10 yards behind the Red LGU tee and five yards in front of the Yellow Tee at the 14th.
TOO SHORT FOR PAR-5s
Having said, the true ladies' par of the course is probably round 72 because there is no way in this day and age and at this level of golf that holes of 360 yards (the fifth), 387 yards (the 12th) and 394 yards (the 17th) should be classed as par-5s.
But Barassie can be a long slog and the weather is forecast to deteriorate towards the end of the week.
There has already been water damage on the 18th fairway. The last hole of the nine-hole course will be used instead.

ANY COMMENTS? E-mail them to colin@scottishgolfview.com