Golf: Injury fear for America's Solheim Cup hopes

The American Brandie Burton injured her ankle during her first practice round yesterday for the Solheim Cup match against Europe, which begins at St Pierre, Chepstow, on Friday.

Burton, who made the team only as a wild card selection after a season during which she has been troubled by back pains, twisted her ankle on the seventh hole and immediately called for a physiotherapist.

Her ankle was bandaged and she tried to continue, but after five more holes decided it was not worth running the risk of aggravating the problem and returned to the clubhouse in a buggy.

The newly-crowned Russian Open champion Carl Watts, from Shropshire, can join Britain's top golfers on next year's PGA European tour by making the halfway cut in the Eulen Open Galea, a PGA European Challenge Tour event which begins in Bilbao, Spain today.

The 26-year-old Watts, a former British youth champion, needs to make the cut to finish in the top 15 of this season's Challenge Tour Ranking and join the main tour after three years of trying. Also within sight of certain top 15 places are Londoner Robert Lee, twice a European Tour winner in the 1980s, former English amateur champion Ian Garbutt, from Doncaster, and the former Walker Cup international Van Phillips, from Maidenhead.