Golf: Pamela Pretswell leads home challenge for ladies title By MARTIN DEMPSTER Published on Friday 27 April 2012 02:15 AN early-season treat lies in store in Troon in the next three days as seven members of Great Britain & Ireland's Curtis Cup team battle against some of Continental Europe's elite in the Helen Holm Scottish Ladies" Open Stroke-Play Championship. Spearheading the strong field is Charley Hull, the young English player who celebrated her inclusion in the side to take on the Americans at Nairn in early June with a top-40 finish in the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the opening women's professional major of the season. The world No 4 is joined in the SLGA's flagship 54-hole event by GB&I team-mates Pamela Pretswell, Amy Boulden, Holly Clyburn, Bronte Law, Kelly Tidy and Leona Maguire, the odd one out from the Curtis Cup side being Stephanie Meadow, who has college commitments in the United States. Bothwell Castle player Pretswell leads the Scottish challenge, which also includes Nairn Dunbar's Kelsey MacDonald, Louise Kenney of Pitreavie and the talented Briggs sisters, Eilidh and Megan, from Kilmacolm. The fact that Heather Stiring was the last Scot to claim the coveted prize, back in 2002, illustrates the task they face but Pretswell has high hopes of ending the home drought after beating a similar strength of field to win the British Ladies" Open Stroke-Play Championship at Tenby last year. Current Scottish champion Kenney gave a good account of herself in this event 12 months ago, finishing fourth just ahead of Eilidh Briggs who used that performance as a springboard to win the Scottish Girls" Chaampionship and the SLGA Girls" Order of Merit. More recently, she claimed the Scottish Universities" title at Lossiemouth. This week's event is a perfect chance for the teenager to see how she's shaping up against some of the leading players on this side of the Atlantic, with a Curtis Cup appearance in two years" time a realistic target. If past Helen Holm form is anything to go by, Maguire, the back-marker off a handicap of plus five, is probably the player to beat. She won as a 14-year-old in 2009 and was runner-up last year, losing out to English player Charlotte Ellis after three-putting the last from around ten feet. Players from Sweden, Norway, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Belgium are also in the field, although, in Celine Boutier and Perrine Delacour, two plus-four handicappers, France perhaps holds the strongest chance of providing an overseas winner. The event - the first under new SLGA championship manager Antonia Melvin-Ffinch's stewardship and last for Sheila Hartley before she steps down as chief operating officer - is made up of two rounds, today and tomorrow, over Troon Portland, with the top 66 and ties then qualifying for the final over Royal Troon on Sunday.