Golf: Quartet eye Gullane glory

Four Lothians players - Lesley Atkins (Gullane), Clara Young (North Berwick), Gabrielle MacDonald (Craigielaw) and Kate McIntosh (Broomieknowe) - are among the Scottish entry for the British Girls' Championship starting today over the Gullane No.1 course.

It is ten years since the last Scottish winner - Clare Queen - and the leading light among the 11 home players is Kilmacolm's Eilidh Briggs. This season, the 18-year-old won the Scottish Girls' Championship and was runner-up in the Scottish Amateur Championship.

Atkins was the 2010 Scottish Girls' champion, while Young, 14, played for the GB and Ireland Under-16 side in the Junior Vagliano Cup match in Wales in June. McIntosh lost to Atkins in last year's Scottish Girls' final, while MacDonald is also a Scottish girls' cap. The other Scots are Alyson McKechin (Elderslie), Gemma Dryburgh (Beaconsfield), Hannah McCook (Grantown-On-Spey) and the Carnoustie pair of Ailsa Summers and Jessica Meek.

Meanwhile, North Berwick's Catriona Matthew, who finished fifth in last week's Ricoh Women's British Open at Carnoustie, had another good week by finishing joint sixth in the Ladies' Irish Open at Killeen Castle. Norway's Suzann Pettersen won the title on 12 under.