Kenney slips into shoes of Couples for brave return

LOUISE Kenney must have felt she was playing in a pair of lead-filled golf shoes as she trudged to a potentially-damaging 81 in the first qualifying round of the Scottish Ladies' (Close) Amateur Championship at Craigielaw.

Yesterday, though, the 27-year-old from Dunfermline trimmed 12 shots off that score to qualify comfortably for the match-play phase and admitted it had literally felt as though she was wearing a pair of slippers.

While an improved performance was unquestionably the main reason behind such an impressive display on another benign day on the East Lothian coast, Kenney's footwear also played a part as she wore, for the first time, a pair of the Ecco boating-style shoes that Fred Couples had on his feet during the first round of this year's Masters.

"I'd had my eye on them for a while and bought them a couple of weeks ago with some of the vouchers I'd won," said the Pitreavie player of her purple shoes. "They are comfier than a pair of trainers – in fact, they're like wearing a pair of slippers. They could be lucky considering how well I played today, so I'll definitely have to think seriously about wearing them for the rest of the week."

Kenney, who lost to Megan Briggs in the final of this event 12 months ago, left herself with little room for error after an opening round she described as "a bad day at the office". However, the nursery school teacher bounced back in style with a four-under-par second day that contained two birdies in each half. "Everything just clicked," she said.

Martine Pow, the 2005 winner, led the 32 qualifiers after following her opening 74 with a 70, pipping Alford's Laura Murray, one of the joint overnight leaders by one shot. "I'm enjoying myself," said Pow, a 45- year-old from Selkirk who put an old two-ball putter back in her bag at the weekend and used it to good effect as she single-putted the first seven greens in her second round.

On a day when the pin positions were more favourable, German-based Rachel Taylor gave herself the 18th birthday present she was looking for, holing three "monster" putts and also signing off with three birdies as she shot a second-round 71 to qualify on the same 150 mark as Kenney.

Nairn Dunbar's Kelsey MacDonald, the first reserve for the Curtis Cup, took three shots to escape from a bunker as she ran up a quadruple-bogey 8 at the seventh and could only manage an 80 for 155. However, she still qualified, as did host club hope Jane Turner (153) and defending champion Megan Briggs (155).

First-round draw: M Pow v A McKechin, L Moffat v K Marshall, E Ogilvy v C-M Carlton, S Wood v A Ramsay, R Taylor v J Chalmers, J Sneddon v M Briggs, S Vass v Claire MacDonald, K McIntosh v L Kenney, S Leslie v E Cuthill, C Gruber v Kelsey MacDonald, L Walker v W Nicholson, S Cuthbertson v R Watton, S Jackson v N Fenton, G Monteith v J Turner, R Hanlon v R McQueen, F Gilbert v L Murray.