Megan Briggs now in contention for

GB&I team place for Vagliano Trophy

New Scottish women's amateur golf champion Megan Briggs (Kilmacolm) has forced herself into contention for a place in the Great Britain & Ireland team by winning her national title at windy Southerness on Saturday when she beat Louise Kenney (Pitreavie) 4 and 3 in the final.
Neither Briggs nor Kenney was named early last October when the preliminary squad for the Vagliano Trophy match against the Continent of Europe at Hamburger Golf Club, Germany on July 24-25 was announced.
But skipper Mary McKenna has said that the Ladies Golf Union Selection committee will choose, after the British women's open amateur championship at Royal St David's Golf Club, Harlech in North Wales from June 9 to 12, nine players who have shown the best form in 2009, whether they are in that prelim squad or not.
Incidentally, the winners of the English (Charlie Douglass) and Welsh (Tara Davies) women's titlea were not in the squad either!
Megan, a 19-year-old Strathclyde University student, needs to follow up her victory at Southerness with a good run in the "British" - and, if she does that, the selectors will surely plump for her as a new GB&I cap.
The same goes for Fife champion Louise Kenney, who played great golf to get to the Scottish final - four under par in beating the No 2 seed Kylie Walker in the quarter-finals, but then was let down by her driving on the last day.
Next year's 96th Scottish women's closed amateur championship will be played for the first time at Craigielaw and, in 2011, the venue will be Machrihanish.