European women's team championship in Sweden

Great Scots improve by 25 shots
to make the top flight

The pressure was on Scotland to produce something special on the second day of the European women's amateur team golf championship at Stenungsunds Golf Club in Sweden - and they did!
Krystle Caithness (St Regulus), Laura Murray (Alford), Pamela Pretswell (Bothwell Castle), Michele Thomson (McDonald Ellon), Kylie Walker (Buchanan Castle) and Louise Kenney (Pitreavie) rose magnificently to the occasion to qualify in seventh place for the championship flight match-play stages.
The Scots produced the lowest second-round team total - best five from six players - improving by a fantastic 25 shots on their first-round effort.
It was a great team effort but top marks to Curtis Cupper Krystle Caithness and Laura Murray for inspiring the surge up the leaderboard that was needed to make the top eight and so qualify for the championship flight match-play.
They both scored four-under-par 68s, a score beaten on the day only by Welsh Curtis Cup player Breanne Loucks with a 66.
Scottish universities champion Pamela Pretswell deserved a pat on the back from team captain Fiona de Vries for shaving 10 shots off her first qualifying round with a 70.
Scottish champion and Curtis Cup player Michele Thomson and St Rule Trophy winner Kylie Walker each improved by three shots, Michele to a 71 and Kylie to a 74.
And even though Louise Kenney's 76 did not count, it was only one more than she had on Tuesday.
Scotland, ninth in the standings at the start of the day and some six shots behind the eighth-placed France, actually finished on the same 727 mark as Austria and France but the tie-breaking system in these championships is a comparison of discarded rounds and both Austria (5) and France (6) were officially placed ahead of the Scots.
So Scotland's seventh place finish earns them a very tough assignment - a quarter-final match against the star-studded Spanish side who were in No 1 spot overnight but were pushed down to No 2 by England who finished on 14-under-par 706 to Spain's 709.
Ninth-placed Wales go into the Flight 2 shake-up alongwith Ireland.
CHAMPIONSHIP FLIGHT
MATCH-PLAY QUALIFIERS
706 ENGLAND 354 352 (Jodi Ewart 66 69, Rachel Jennings 69 71, Naomi Edwards 71 69, Florentyna Parker 76 72, Kerry Smith 78 72, Elizabeth Bennett 72 73).
709 SPAIN 353 356 (Adriana Zwanck 70 69, Carlota Ciganda 71 69, Azahara Munoz 70 70, Belen Mozo 73 74, Ane Urchegui 75 74, Maria Hernandez 69 76).
717 SWEDEN 363 354, NETHERLANDS 365 352.
727 AUSTRIA 362 365, FRANCE 370 357, SCOTLAND 376 351 (Krystle Caithness 74 68, Laura Murray 76 68, Pamela Pretswell 80 70, Michele Thomson 74 71, Kylie Walker 77 74, Louise Kenney 75 76).
731 DENMARK 362 369.
FLIGHT 2 QUALIFIERS
736 WALES 377 359 (Breanne Loucks 73 66, Sahra Hassan 72 71, Rhian Wyn Thomas 77 73, Stephanie Evans 80 73, Hannah Jenkins 75 76, Kirsty O'Connor 83 77).
739 GERMANY 369 370.
746 SWITZERLAND 377 369.
747 BELGIUM 379 368.
748 NORWAY 383 365.
749 IRELAND 379 370 (Tara Delaney 73 72, Gillian O'Leary 78 73, Niamh Kitching 79 73, Danielle McVeigh 77 73, Maura Morrin 75 79, Dawn Marie Conaty 76 80).
756 ITALY 384 372.
762 FINLAND 382 380.