And then there were two.
Catriona Matthew, Scotland's highest ranked golfer on the world stage, had been the only home player guaranteed a tee-time for this week's Ricoh Women's British Open Championship at St Andrews until Carly Booth doubled the meagre tally last night.
The Perthshire youngster had to do it the hard way, though. In the 18-hole final qualifying shoot-out at Kingsbarns, Booth emerged from a 12-woman play-off to decide the last four remaining places in the fourth major on the female calendar.
The 21-year-old, who missed the cut in last year's championship at Hoylake and also contested this season's US Women's Open, had given herself a fighting chance of a St Andrews spot with a three-under-par 69 over the tricky Kingsbarns links. With 16 qualifying places on offer, Booth finished on the cut-off point and joined the throng for the sudden-death decider.
The former Curtis Cup player, who won twice on the Ladies European Tour last year, showed her qualities under pressure and made a birdie-3 on the 10th, the first extra-hole, to progress along with Tania Elosegui of Spain and the Swedish duo, Louise Larsson and Camilla Lennarth. "I made it, couldn't be happier," was Booth's simple statement of jubilation.
The leaderboard was topped by the impressive Chinese teenager, Xiyu Lin, who surged to the head of the standings with a sparkling seven-under 65. The 17-year-old raced to the turn in 32 before bolstering her assault with a trio of gains at the 14th, 15th and 16th. Lin, who will join a formidable contingent from the Far East which is headlined by the world No 1 Inbee Park of Korea, finished a stroke clear of England's Emily Taylor and Malene Jorgensen of Denmark.
Welsh amateur Amy Boulden secured a second successive appearance in the Women's Open with a 68 that was aided by a haul of four birdies and an eagle on her front nine.
There was disappointment though for Bothwell Castle's Pamela Pretswell, as she fell short of the play-off by a single shot. Kelsey MacDonald, the Nairn rookie, also finished on the two-under mark while Musselburgh's Vikki Laing and former Scottish Women's Amateur champion Michele Thomson failed to make the grade with 72s.
Cheyenne Woods, whose well-kent uncle Tiger won two Open Championships at St Andrews in 2000 and 2005, won't be following in those triumphant footsteps, for now at least, as the 23-year-old rookie could only manage a 74 to finish out of the qualifying picture.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article