SCOTS DO WELL IN R&A JUNIOR OPEN

SCOTS KEEP COOL AND IN THE PICTURE
AT R&A JUNIOR OPEN IN HESWALL HEAT

Scots Michael Stewart and Carly Booth kept cool in the oppressive heat to be up with the leaders at the end of the first day of the R&A Junior Open golf championship at Heswall Golf Club on the Wirral, Cheshire today.
Both youngsters have come straight from an exhausting week of the European boys' and girls' team championships in Scandinavia. But you would never have known.
Troon Welbeck member Michael, 16, shot a two-under-par 70 to share a two-stroke lead in the boys' championship with Italy's Cristiano Terragni.
Comrie's Carly, only recently turned 14, is in joint second place in the girls' event with a level par 72 despite a triple bogey 8 at the long fifth before she had got the first of her bag of five birdies.
"I drove on to a footpath at the fifth, got a bad lie, topped my recovery into a ditch and then duffed a chip. No so long ago, a triple bogey so early in the round would have put me right off, but not now. I've learned to cope with stupid mistakes like that, shutting them right out of my mind as quickly as I can," said Carly.
"But for that hole I played well and I must be happy to get away with a par round with an 8 in it. And the longest putt I holed all day was just a few feet.
The long-hitting Miss Booth was able to birdie three par-5s, the ninth, 12th and 17th, and she also birdied the par-4 sixth and 16th with accurate approach shots.
Carly would have been one of the favourites for the Scottish Under-18 girls' match-play championship at Peebles, beginning today (Tuesday), had she not been nominated as Scotland's girl representative for the R&A Junior Open.  She was beaten finalist at the age of 13 last year at Tain.
Heswall, nominally a parkland course, is playing like an out-and-out links with fast-running fairways and hard fast greens.
Michael Stewart, like Carly, had a potential disaster on his card - a double-bogey 5 at the short 11th but, he too, took the setback in his stride.
"I took an eight-iron instead of a nine on the tee and it was too big. The ball went over the green on to horrible lie on a downslope. I left the chip 10ft short and three-putted," said Michael. "But I thought a 70 was a solid start. The greens were much the same as I've been putting on in Denmark last week and at Worthing the week before in the English Under-16 open championship.
Stewart was three under par through the turn in 33 with birdies at the third, fourth and sixth.
The double-bogey at 11th was followed by a pitch-and-putt birdie 4 at the long 12th.
"I parred my way in from there. Had birdie chances at the 15th and 17th but I wasn't too unhappy to finish with a 70."