Caroline Hedwall earns top seed among 64 qualifiers at Ganton
Six Scots make it through to "British" match-play
COLIN FARQUHARSON REPORTS FROM GANTON --- Kirkwoodgolf
Six Scots made it through to the match-play stages of the British women’s open amateur golf championship at Ganton Golf Club, Yorkshire on another warm, sunny day when top seed, Sweden’s Caroline Hedwall, declared she would have loved to have played in the Curtis Cup before she winds up her stellar amateur career at the end of the present season.
“This is my last season as an amateur because I have quit Oklahoma State University after two years to go to the Tour Schools on both sides of the Atlantic at the end of the season,” said 21-year-old European women’s champion,
Hedwall was No 1 of the 64 qualifiers for the match-play stages of the “British,” adding a three-under-par 70 for a three-under-par total of 143.
Top Scottish qualifier as 10th seed was Curtis Cup teenager Sally Watson (Elie and Earslferry) with scores of 72 and 76 for 148. Sally had only one birdie to her credit in the second round – a 4 at the long 15th but she did keep her ration of bogeys down to four, at the fifth, seventh, 11th and 18th
That’s no mean feat on a testing course where the trees, gorse bushes and steep-sided bunkers punish heavily any misdirect shots.
Scottish champion Kelsey MacDonald (Nairn Dunbar) qualified with ease in 13th place on 149 with rounds of 76 and 73.
“There was a stronger swirling wind today that made club selection a wee bit more difficult,” said the Stirling student who must have made the right choices when she had four 3s in a row from the second in an outward two-under-par 35.
Auchterarder’s Emily Ogilvy had more eagles than even the leaders over the 36-hole eliminator – two in Tuesday’s 76 and one at the 496yd fifth in a second-round 79 for 155. Emily qualified in 39th place.
Pamela Pretswell (Bothwell Castle), the second Curtis Cup Scot in the field, slumped from 75 to 81 yesterday (Wed) for 156 which gave her 45th place in the draw. After six straight pars, the Glasgow University student’s troubles began with a triple bogey 7 at the seventh in an outward 40 and she later had a double bogey 5 at the short 17th in halves of 40 and 41 with birdies at the eighth and 18th not enough to offset the mistakes.
Laura Murray from Alford and Craigielaw’s Jane Turner, a student at Robert Gordon University, were two of 15 players on the limit mark of 12-over-par 158. There was room for only eight of them in the draw of 32 first-round match-play ties.
For the first time in this championship there was no lengthy play-off as a tie-breaker.
Instead a card countback did the elimination work.
Both Murray and Turner survived the countback, thanks to their second rounds. Laura, started badly and finished weakly but played brilliantly in the holes in between to return a 76, six shots better than on Tuesday, while Jane had a grandstand finish of four birdies in a row from the 14th for a 75, having started her round with two double-bogey 6s. Some recovery!
Majorca-based 16-year-old Scot Lauren Mackin had an off day following her sparkling first-round 73. Her score soared to 85 and she was one of those eliminated on 158.
Megan Briggs (Kilmacolm), last year’s Scottish champion, bowed out with a 76 for 159.
Two members of the recent GB and I Curtis Cup team failed to qualify. Hannah Barwood (Knowle) had an 82 for 159 while Danielle McVeigh (Royal Co Down Ladies), the outstanding player in Mary McKenna’s squad in the States, went out with scores of 84 and 77 for 161.
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Ladies Golf News in Scotland, the West of Scotland and Renfrewshire
