SENIOR LADIES BRITISH OPEN AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP
Over 54 holes at Belvoir Park GC, Belfast
September 13 to 15, 2011
All six top finishers in last week’s Irish Senior Ladies’ Open Stroke Play Championship at Greenore Golf Club (September 7 to 9) are in the field for this week’s Senior Ladies’ British Open Amateur Chamionship at Belvoir Park Golf Club, Belfast.
Finland ’s Minna Kaarnalahti will be bidding for back-to-back victories on the Emerald Isle.
She won the Irish title at Greenore by one shot from joint runners-up Pauline Walsh (Headfort), Alison Bartlett (Royal Dornoch) and Helen Jones (Strabane).
Winning the British title would go some way towards compensating Helen Jones for losing the Irish championship as a result of a Rules infringement.
Helen Jones was in the field at wild and windy West Kilbride Golf Club, Ayrshire 12 months ago when England’s Bev New, from the Lansdown Golf Club, Somerset, making her debut in the event, having reached her 50th birthday, came through on the final day from joint fifth place overnight with a three-birdie performance and the low round of the tournament, a 73, to win with a three-round total of 19-over-par 235 – one shot ahead of another debutante, Pat Doran (Donabate), with Vicki Thomas, the 2009 champion, third on 238 and Scotland’s Maureen Richmond (Royal Liverpool), the joint second-round leader, fourth on 239.
Bev New, pictured above with a local piper after her West Kilbride victory, turned pro after a stellar amateur career which saw her win the English title and play for Great Britain and Ireland in the Curtis Cup. She was reinstated as an amateur after continuing her successful golfing career as a professional on the Ladies European Tour.
Running a busy coffee shop in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset , does not leave Bev much time for golf but she has reached the quarter-finals of the English seniors’ close championship this year and also finished third in the English seniors’ stroke-play championship.
A truly international field will be assembling at Belvoir Park with thirteen countries represented.
The Belvoir Park Golf Club course is sited in 136 acres of mature woodland, but only two miles from Belfast ’s City Centre.
Harry S Colt was the course designer in the 1920s and there are those who rate Belvoir Park as one of the best inland courses, not only in Ireland but further afield.
The 54-hole championship tees off on Tuesday and there will be a cut to the leading 40 and ties after Wednesday’s second round for the final 18 holes on Thursday. In the event of a tie for first place after the third round, there will be a sudden-death play-off.
I believe the only Scots that are there are Janice Paterson (Drumpellier), Pam Williamson, Barbara Biggart and Maureen Richmond, Heather Anderson , Lorna Bennett, Kathleen Sutherland and the sisters from Tain Mary Smith and Anne Ryan
Remember last year at West Kilbride in that awful weather ---- CLICK HERE TO REMIND YOURSELF
