MANCHESTER teenagers Rachel Connor and Kelly Tidy have been promoted into the English Women's Golf Association's top-ranking Performance Squad.

It is a reward for helping their country to win the Girls' Home Internationals and claim a silver medal in the European Team Championship buy the pair have also enjoyed regional success.

Rachel, 18, a member of Hopwood Cottage where her dad Brian and brother Scott are professionals, is coached by Tour star Nick Dougherty's dad Roger. And this season she won the Formby Leveret - her second success in a top scratch event - and was a quarter-finalist in the English Championship.

Kelly, who has switched moved from Dunscar to Royal Birkdale, represented Europe in the Junior Ryder Cup in Kentucky in September, was the runner-up in the British Girls' Championship for the second year in a row, and was fifth in the European Young Masters.

And the 16-year-old Bolton girl, a former MEN Greater Manchester Junior Open winner, was also crowned the second youngest Lancashire champion at Worsley in May.

Linda Bayman, EWGA's performance director, commented: "It is time to move to the next generation. Three members of the Performance Squad will still be eligible to play in the Girls' International team in 2009 but our programme recognises hard work and good performance rather than chronological age."

She added: "The England team will also be strengthened when the US college students return in May. This gives plenty of options for team selection."

Meanwhile, the English Golf Union in conjunction with the EWGA are to launch a system of handicapping that will identify the competitive nature of all those golfers in England with a handicap.

The system will come into effect on the January 1, 2010 and will require all members with handicaps to return at least three qualifying scores per year in order to retain an active handicap. The initiative will be particularly attractive to clubs running Open Days who wish to monitor the playing ability of those taking part.