KELLY BROTHERTON WINS FIRST

US COLLEGE EVENT

Former Scottish Under-21 girls champion Kelly Brotherton from Tulliallan has scored her first win on the United States women's college golf circuit.
Recruited by the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga's Scots-born head women's golf coach Colette Murray from Colorado University, where her golf game had gone to pieces, Kelly, pictured right, repaid the vote of confidence by scoring 74, 72 and 70 for a level par aggregate of 216 in the first event of the new women's college season, the Chris Banister Gamecock Classic, over the Jacksonville State University Silver Lakes course in Alabama.
Brotherton, 21, won the individual event by three shots from another Murray recruit, Australian Emma de Groot who scored 70, 75 and 74 for 219.
Portia Abbot (Jacksonville State) from English finish fifth with scores of 72, 75 and 78 for 225.

Tennessee-Chattanooga, whose golf programme was resurrected for the 2007-2008 season under coach Murray's guidance after a 20-year hiatus, won the team event by the resounding margin of 27 shots with a total of 885, a record low for the tournament. Jacksonville State (912) were second and Eastern Kentucky (932) third of nine teams.

Colette Murray was for four years an outstanding player for Jacksonville State. She stayed on to become assistant coach at JSU before last year being given an offer she could not refuse to build a Tennessee-Chattanooga women's golf team from scratch.

That she could put together a team that would win its first title in its first tournament was beyond her wildest dreams.

LEADING FINAL TOTALS

Silver Lakes course (5,558yd),

Jacksonville, Alabama

Individuals
Par 216 (3 x 72)

216 Kelly Brotherton (UTC) 74 72 70.

219 Emma de Groot (UTC) 70 75 74.

Other total:

225 Portia Abbott (Jacksonville State) 72 75 78 (5th of 48).

Teams

885 Tennessee-Chattanooga.

912 Jacksonville State.

932 Eastern Kentucky.

Nine teams took part.