Simon Fairburn recovers from rugby injury in time to defend Champions' title

Last year's winners, Simon Fairburn (Torwoodlee) and Alyson McKechin (Elderslie), are both are back to defend their titles, though the former's participation looked in doubt a few weeks ago when he broke his collarbone playing rugby.

Whether a plus one golfer who picked up a silver medal in the Scottish Youths' Championship last season should be finding himself at the bottom of a ruck in the first place is a matter for debate, but at least he's recovered in time for the start of the new campaign.

Fairburn is no longer a junior and neither is Rachel Watton, but she is also in the field due to it being a 2010 event. Like Fairburn, she has also emerged from the winter with a medical report after ending last season with hip and back trouble.

"I didn't play for about two months from around the end of September and have been receiving a lot of physiotherapy through the Scottish Institute of Sport," said the Mortonhall 18-year-old, who helped Scotland win the Women's Home Internationals for the first time in 19 years just prior to that. In her first outing of the year, Watton missed the cut in last week's Spanish Amateur. "But that was my first competition for about six months and it was good preparation for this weekend, when I am certainly looking to win," she added.

In addition to McKechin, there are a number of players who are capable of foiling Watton, the likes of Lesley Atkins, Eilidh Briggs, Kate McIntosh and Gabrielle MacDonald to name but a few.

As for Fairbairn, he'll have to beat five members of the Scotland side on duty in last week's Boys' Quadrangular event, including Scottish Boys' champion Grant Forrest and Bradley Neil, the Scottish U14 title holder, in Italy to hang on to his title.