Leaders still tied after up and down day at Scottish Women's Open

DUNFERMLINE schoolteacher Louise Kenney (Pitreavie) and Lancashire teenager Nikki Foster (Pleasington) started the second round of the Helen Holm Scottish women's open amateur stroke-play championship locked together in the lead at eight-under-par 67.

They were still inseparable after the second round at Troon Portland yesterday, both players returning four-under-par 71s for 138. But the bare figures don't tell the story of the fluctuation in fortunes that went on between the joint leaders.

Foster went four shots clear of the field on her own after nine holes of the second round. But she let her big advantage slip away with bogeys at two short holes, the 14th and the 16th, and required a birdie at the long 18th to come home in one-over-par 38 for a 71 for a

two-round total of a 12-under-par 138.

Foster had surged to the turn in 33 to be 13 under par for 27 holes of the 54 hole tournament, of which the last round will be played over Royal Troon today.

Kenney picked up a shot on par by covering the first nine holes in 37 but was four shots adrift of Foster. However, the Fifer slashed the deficit to two with birdies at the 10th and 12th and bagged two more at the 13th and long 15th.

The pair are three shots ahead of Danielle McVeigh (Royal Co Down Ladies) who added a 71 to her opening 70, and six shots clear of the next nearest challengers.