Tidy display secures Julie Yang's last-16 berth

NO SCOTS-BORN player is going to win the British Girls' Open Amateur Championship at Royal Belfast this week. But there is an outstanding prospect of reflected glory from South Korean 15-year-old Julie Yang, who has lived at Musselburgh since last September.

The three Scots who qualified for the match-play stages all went out in the first round on another day of mixed weather - wet and miserable at the start until the sun broke through in the afternoon.

Scottish Girls' champion Lesley Atkins (Gullane Ladies), still only 15, lost a titantic first-round struggle at the 23rd hole to Italy's Laura Sedda, a former winner of the Scottish Under-16 Open title.

Hannah McCook (Nethy Bridge) lost by 3 and 1 to Ha Rang Lee (Spain) after being one down at the turn, while the last Scot to bow out was Renfrewshire women's champion Eilidh Briggs (Kilmalcolm). She was beaten 3 and 2 by highly-rated Spaniard Camilla Hedberg.

Yang, starting at 7am and playing through the worst of the heavy rain, was an impressive three-under-par in winning her first tie by 5 and 4 over Shelby Smart (Knowle).

That put her into a second-round match against another of the title favourites, British Women's Open Amateur champion Kelly Tidy (Royal Birkdale), who lost in the British Girls' final of 2007 and 2008. If any match deserved the description of the "final before the final", this was it - and Yang was the winner by one hole to reach the last 16.