McDonald aiming to boost stricken coach

JACK McDonald, the top seed in the event, is hoping to give his coach, Adam Hunter, a tonic as he battles leukaemia by winning the Scottish Boys' Championship, which gets underway today for the tenth time at West Kilbride.

When he teed up in the same event at Royal Aberdeen 12 months ago, McDonald was playing off three and surprised even himself by reaching the quarter-finals, where he was beaten by Paul Shields, the eventual runner-up.

The progress McDonald, a 17-year-old who plays at Kilmarnock (Barassie), has made since then is astonishing. Not only is his handicap down to scratch – it was plus one – but he also has a national title to his name, having produced one of the best performances of the 2009 season on the domestic front when winning the Scottish Boys' Stroke-Play Championship by four shots at Ladybank.

"Adam Hunter has been a big influence on me," said McDonald, who was due on the first tee at 7.25am this morning to face Kingussie's Jordan Shaw in the opening round. "(Due to his illness] I've not seen him since around October but I've been up at the Mearns Castle Golf Academy seeing George Boswell over the winter and I know he's been passing information on to Adam."

Paul Lawrie revealed during last week's Andalucian Open that Hunter is now out of hospital and McDonald, a sixth-year pupil at Grange Academy in Kilmarnock, added: "I'm hoping he can be an even bigger influence on me this year and I'm sure it would be a good tonic for him if I could win this week."

From solid golfing stock – his grandfather, Gordon Cosh, played in the Walker Cup – McDonald, who was out in South Africa recently with members of the SGU elite squad on a training trip, has the chance to join an exclusive club this week. Only Scott Henry (2004-05), Steven Young (1994-95) and John Huggan (1977-78) have won the Scottish Boys' Match-Play event the season after claiming the Stroke-Play title.

Hazlehead's David Law, who won at Royal Aberdeen before going on to complete a historic double by also winning the Scottish Amateur Championship, is too old to defend his title, but McDonald will face stiff competition from the likes of Deeside's Jack Scott, Borderer Simon Fairburn, ex-footballer's son Ian Redford of St Andrews New and Pollok's Conor O'Neil, the backmarker in the field off +1.9.

Fifer Duncan Weir, who now works for the R&A, won the first staging of the event at West Kilbride in 1979, since then the champions crowned over the picturesque Ayrshire course have included left-hander Ben Collier, the aforementioned Young, who recorded the first of his record-breaking three successive successes in 1993, and Stewart Whiteford, the brother of Andalucian Open runner-up Peter.

The handicap ballot for this year's event fell at 5.4, with eight of the players in the 256-strong field representing Troon Welbeck and five players heading to West Kilbride from both Craigielaw in East Lothian and Williamwood in Glasgow.