O'Brien wins north girls' championship
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TWO trips over the Ord last weekend proved very rewarding for Reay's Mollie O'Brien (17) when she won the first Scottish Golf North Girls' Championship at Muir of Ord on Friday and then against her peers at Brora on Saturday, in the Brora Women's Open, finished in a three-way tie for second place.
Following last November's amalgamation of the male and female administrations of golf within the north, the Northern Counties Women's Golf Association and the men's North District Association, championships for both genders are now run by the new body, Scottish Golf North District, and last Friday Muir of Ord Golf Club hosted the boys' and girls' championships.
For the boys the course length is 5542 yards and for girls 5128 yards. Under last Thursday's scorching heat Nairn's Calum Daun became the boys' champion and winner of the Bain Trophy with cards of 73 and 67 and Mollie O'Brien the girls' champion with a marvellous level-par gross card of 70.
O'Brien finished 10 shots in front of Katrina Tan (Nairn), the losing finalist in last month's Inverness club championship.
Royal Dornoch girls Mikayla MacKay and Rhianna Mackay were first and third respectively in handicap order, nett 66 and nett 72 respectively.
At Brora the following day O'Brien was in a strong a strong field that included an English county player, Julia Brook from Walton Heath, and Tain Golf Club's sisters, Mary Smith and Anne Ryan, both previous winners at Brora.
Brook got to the top of the leader board with a 75 (40/35) before O'Brien joined the Tain siblings on 76 (36/40), her inward card finishing 6, 5, 5, 4, five over par, to drop her below Smith (40/36) and Ryan (37/39).
O'Brien's final four-hole collapse also cost her the first nett place in the silver handicap division to Fiona Hampton (Royal Dornoch), also with nett 70.
