The newspaper Scotland on Sunday ran a feature last, um, Sunday, about 15-year-old Carly Booth, the youngest-ever member of the Great Britain & Ireland Curtis Cup team.

Carly has spent the last two years living with a host family in Phoenix, on scholarship, working so hard on her game that she's missed holidays with the family: "She says that tournament play got in the way of her making it home for Christmas. She says it in a way that leaves you in little doubt that it hurt her."

Her parents welcomed her home on Monday morning. It's been two years since she first went away and their daughter has no hint of a Scottish accent left. Her older brother, Wallace (who will be competing in the Scottish Amateur at the Duke's Course at St Andrews at the same time as Carly is playing the Curtis Cup) says it is his mission to get her Scot-ified again.

And while many people tell her that she shouldn't miss college, it sounds like she might miss high school: "The high school term begins anew on August 11 but Carly is committed to tournaments at that point and where she gets her schooling from now on is a topic that's still up in the air in the Booth household."

It also sounds like opinions vary about the value of school:

And Carly asks: "What about school? What if golf doesn't work out? And dad's, like, why wouldn't it work out?"

Carly is a little confused about the school and college thing. Stay on and get a good education or cut and run to the professional game?

"Right now I don't have an answer for that," she says. "I don't know, honestly. I have so many different people saying 'no, you have to go (to college], it's gonna be awesome' and then people say 'no, you don't need college if you think you are good enough to turn pro'."

At home in Comrie, differing opinions. "Dad's not that bothered about school at all. He'd say, if you want, just stop school now. But my mum (Pauline] wants me to get an education, which is fair enough. She wants me to at least graduate high school and I want to at least graduate high school. We'll see how it goes. This is what my mum always tells me. You need something to fall back on in case the golf doesn't work out and my dad is, like, well, if you want to be a golfer you're gonna be a golfer."

Booth is "the No.1 junior in Europe and the holder of the Scottish Under-21 and Under-18 titles" and the last time she played The Old Course she shot 65.