Golf: McIntosh is feeling Champion

KATE McINTOSH reaped another reward for sharpening up her short game over the winter as the Broomieknowe player led a Lothians 1-2 in the Scottish Junior Champion of Champions at St Andrews.

The 17-year-old, who topped the leaderboard in the last of the SGU Winter Series events at Troon Darley the previous weekend, laid down a bigger marker with this latest win at The Dukes. McIntosh carded a two-over par 74 over the testing Fife course and pipped Mortonhall's Rachel Watton by virtue of a better inward half.

"This is a good start to the season," said McIntosh, a sixth-year pupil at Lasswade High School who is in her final year as a junior.

Runner-up last season, one of her top targets this year will be trying to go one better in the Scottish Girls' Championship.

"I am coached by Colin Brooks, who has made a big difference to my game," added McIntosh. "I've been doing a lot of work on my short game in particular and that is the best bit at the moment."

Now she is hoping to join the likes of Watton in the field for the Helen Holm Trophy, the first big event of the ladies' season, at Troon at the end of next month. "I'm going to see if my handicap is low enough to get me in," said the winner.

In the boys' event, which was won by Kirkhill's Craig Ross, Liberton's Anthony Blaney and two-time Lothians junior champion Simon Fairburn finished in a tie for seventh on 75.

Craigielaw's Grant Forrest, who defends his Scottish Boys' title at Dunbar next month, was in a group on 76.