Championships - Ladies' British Open Amateur Championship 2009
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07.06.2009
Australian Whitney bidding to follow in Edwina Kennedy's footsteps as champion.
Edwina Kennedy from New South Wales, on her 19th birthday in 1978, became the first Australian to win the Ladies’ British open amateur golf championship. She beat England’s Julia Greenhalgh by one hole in the final at Notts Golf Club. Thirty-one years later Edwina is still the only Australian to have won this, one of the most prestigious titles in ladies’ amateur golfer worldwide. Compatriots Jane Lock (1979 at Nairn), Louise Briers (1986 at West Sussex) and Wendy Doolan (1991 at Pannal) have been the only other Australians to reach the final but they lost.There are four Australians in this week’s field at Royal St David’s Golf Club and one, of them, Whitney Hillier from Joondalup, Perth, in Western Australia has at least two things in common with Edwina Kennedy to inspire her to end the 31-year no-win state of affairs. Whitney is 18 years old and she is the current Australian girls champion, as Edwina was when she won the British title in 1978.
Miss Hillier has a golfing CV that suggests she will present a strong challenge to the British and Irish challengers, not to mention the Continentals who have won the last six and seven of the last Ladies British open amateur championships.
Whitney won the San Diego Junior Masters Championship in California in 2008 and tied for fourth place in the Callaway World Junior Cup in 2007. And in 2006 she won the St Andrews Junior Ladies Open.
She has already won one prestigious competition in Britain since she arrived from Australia a couple of weeks ago.
Last week Whitney finished three shots ahead of the field in the 36-hole Astor Salver at The Berkshire with an impressive nine-under-par total of 136 (70-66).
Incidentally, fellow Australian Stacey Keating from Victoria had a hole in one in that tournament in finishing joint 10th and another player from Down Under, Julia Boland from New South Wales came joint sixth.
The new champions of the four home unions will be in action in Tuesday and Wednesday’s 36-hole stroke-play test which will decide the 64 players who will go forward to the match-plays stages from Thursday through to Saturday afternoon’s 18-hole final.
Charlie Douglass (Brocket Hall) won the English title, Meghan Briggs (Kilmacolm) the Scottish champion, Tara Davies (Holyhead), the Welsh title, and 14-year-old Lisa Maguire (Slieve Russell) succeeded her twin sister Leona as the Irish women’s champion.
Both Lisa and Leona will be making their debut in the Ladies’ British Open Amateur Championship.
Curtis Cup player Jodi Ewart (Catterick) missed the English championship as she was still competing for the University of New Mexico at the time. The English stroke-play champion, Jodi has a strong claim to be one of the favourites to repel the overseas challenge at Harlech this week.
Last week, Jodi was named by the US National Golf Coaches Association to its All-American First Team – the first British female golfer to be so honoured for many years.
Miss Ewart, by the way, was ranked No 9 at the end of the US college season. She was beaten in the round of the last 16 at North Berwick last year by Sweden’s Caroline Hedwall who went on to reach the final where she lost to compatriot Anna Nordqvist.
Miss Nordqvist is not defending the title as she is now a tour professional.
Carlota Ciganda, the Spanish youngster who won the championship at Alwoodley, Leeds in 2007 but did not defend last year, is back in the field this week. A student at Arizona State University since January, Carlota was one of three Spaniards who were ranked in the top seven at the end of the 2008-2009 US college season – and two them are playing at Harlech!
Carlota was No 2 and Azahara Munoz (also Arizona State University), a former British girls' open champion, was No 3.
Whoever wins, it promises to be a feast of quality golf over one of Britain’s quality links courses.
Spectators are welcome and admission is free.
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