Championships - Ladies' British Open Amateur Championship 2010
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2010 GB & I Curtis Cup Team Member - Rachel Jennings
24.06.2010
Curtis Cup pair make it through to last 16
Round 2Rachel Jennings and Sally Watson are the only Great Britain and Ireland Curtis Cup team players from the 2010 match to have made it through to the last 16 of the Ladies British open amateur championship at Ganton Golf Club, Yorkshire.
The first round of the match-play saw Pamela Pretswell (Bothwell Castle) go out to a last green 30ft putt by the 2007 championship winner and last year’s beaten finalist, Carlota Ciganda.
In the second round, team-mate Holly Clyburn (Woodhall Spa) lost by 3 and 2 to the No 1 seed Caroline Hedwall who in the morning had come back from four down after five holes to wear down Woburn’s Nicole Whitmore and win with a concession before the green at the 18th hole.
Hedwall was three up after four holes against Clyburn who was in the bushes at the first two holes. The long-hitting Swede, playing in the championship for the last time in her final season as an amateur, birdied the fourth to go three up but Clyburn squared the match by winning the sixth, seventh and eighth with par figures.
The Swede did not take long to re-establish a three-hole lead. She birdied the long ninth and won the 10th and 11th where Clyburn three-putted both.
Clyburn won back the 12th but lost the 13th to another birdie from Hedwall and the English player produced a birdie of her own to win the long 15th and go back to only two down.
Hedwall won the tie at the 16th where Clyburn was in the woods off the tee.
“I’m feeling good. I prefer match-play and I know the holes I can birdie,” she said.
Rachel Jennings was a one-hole winner over Mireia Prat (Spain) in the afternoon after winning by 6 and 5 over Germany’s Valerie Sternebeck.
“Yes, I’m tired coming back from the Curtis Cup but I’m hanging on in there, not thinking beyond the next match,” said the 21-year-old Staffordshire player who intends trying her luck at the Ladies European Tour Q School later this year.
“I’ve got an option to go to Texas A and M University in January so if I don’t make it at the Q School, I have the States to look forward to.
“I’ve never got to the last 16 of this championship before so I’m quite pleased about that, bearing in mind how tired I am.”
Jennings was two up twice on the outward half before being pulled back to square by Pratt’s birdies at the eighth and 10th.
Rachel drove the green at the 14th (279yd) for a two-putt winning birdie 3 before the long 15th was halved in birdie 4s.
Prat won the 17th with a par 3 to square the contest but missed the green at the last and Jennings’ solid par 4 won the day.
Jennings will now play American Meghan Stasi who beat 16-year-old Welsh international Amy Boulden by one hole. Amy was one up on the 16th tee but drove into the bushes and was pulled back to square. The 17th was halved and the American won the match at the 18th after both went through the back of the green with their approach shots in the increasingly bouncy conditions and the windiest day of the week.
Meghan Stasi won the 2007 US mid-amateur title and was a Curtis Cup player in her maiden name of Meghan Bolger.
Scottish champion Kelsey MacDonald (Nairn Dunbar) avenged the defeat of compatriot Pretswell by beating Carlota Ciganda by one-hole in a great second-round match.
“I was out in five under par and round in six under in beating Pia Halbig in the morning,” said Kelsey later, “so when I started bogey-bogey to do two down immediately to Carlota, I thought that maybe I had used up all my luck and good golf in the first round.”
But MacDonald kept calm, stopped the rot with a series of halves in pars before unleashing a terrific sub-par barrage at her highly-rated opponent. Kelsey chipped in from over 30yd for an eagle 3 at ninth, holed a birdie putt for a 2 at the 10th and birdied the 11th to go from two down to one up in the space of three great holes.
From there in the players exchanged holes with MacDonald getting her nose in front again to say by winning the short 17th with a great five-iron tee shot.
Ciganda, after the better approach shot at the last, had to hole an eight-foot birdie putt to take the tie into extra holes … but she failed and Kelsey was through to the last 16 with “the best match-play win I’ve ever had!”
MacDonald will now play another Spaniard, Adriana Zwanck after she beat Kelsey’s Scottish team-mate and St Rule Trophy winner, Laura Murray from Alford, who had beaten the No 4 seed, Camilla Hedberg (Spain) by one hole in the morning.
Zwanck won the first three holes with a par-birdie-birdie run and that, in the final analysis, proved the decisive difference between the players.
Murray got her deficit back to one on two occasions but couldn’t wipe out completely the early holes she had lost.
Sian James (Bristol and Clifton) beat Germany’s Sophia Popov by 3 and 1 to earn a third-round match against American Olivia Lansing.
Australian Stacey Keating, conqueror by one hole in the first round of the No 3 seed and first qualifying round leader Giulia Molinaro (Italy), won again in the afternoon by one hole against American Stefanie Kenoyer.
Sally Watson (Elie and Earlsferry), who had scored a 6 and 5 win over Nikki Foster (Pleasington), one of the most successful open tournament players of the domestic season so far, before she returned three-under-par figures in beating the French challenge of Justine Dreher by 4 and 3.
“I was never behind and was two up after five before I lost the sixth and seventh and then won the eighth and ninth to be two up at the turn,” said Sally who may be tired but is certainly happy although she cannot remember if she has ever reached the last 16 of this championship before.
A birdie 3 at the 10th was the real clincher for the Scot, a student at Stanford University, California. That put her three up and allowed her the luxury of three-putting to lost the 11th without feeling under any real pressure.
Watson then polished off her opponent with birdie 43s at both the holes close home, the 13th and 15th.
England’s 17-year-old champion Hayley Davis (Ferndown) had a good one-hole win over Florida-based rising Israeli star Laetitia Beck.
Making her debut in the championship, Hayley was two down after eight holes but won the ninth and 10th with pars to square the match.
Beck hit back to win the 11th but Davis’s par at the 12th squared it again. Hayley did very well to get a winning birdie 4 at the 13th from one of Ganton’s cavernous bunkers.
But Beck holed a 25ft putt for winning birdie at the 16th to make it level pegging again. After a half in par at the 17th, Davis won a place in the last 16 with a birdie 3 at the last.
Round 1
Top seed Caroline Hedwall met with unexpected stiff resistance from the last of the 64 match-play qualifiers, Nicole Whitmore (Woburn), before winning their first-round tie on a concession at the 18th hole in the Ladies British open amateur championship at at a windy Ganton Golf Club, Yorkshire today.
But No 3 seed Giulia Molinaro (Italy), who led at the end of the first qualifying round, was beaten and so too were the fourth and fifth best qualifiers, Camilla Hedberg *Spain) and Taylor Karle (United States).
Hedwall, the 21-year-old Swedish holder of the European women’s amateur title, found herself four down after five , losing the first to a birdie, the second to a par, the third to a birdie and the fourth to a par.
“Nicole played well on the front nine and I wasn’t playing all that badly. I finished the match only one or two over par so that’s not bad scoring in match-play,” said Caroline who intends turning professional at the end of the amateur season.
“Even when I was four down after eight and still three down at the turn, I wasn’t feeling I was going to lose. I always play the inward half well, so I was confident I could make up the holes on the way home.”
Nicole, who has been three years at Nova Southeastern University, Florida, felt she played her best in the early holes “ because I wasn’t under any pressure at all against the No 1 qualifier.”
“Then it hit me at the turn that I was three up on the top seed and I started to get a bit nervous. And it was a pity that the match finished at the 18th with me having to concede after hooking my tee shot into the trees, coming well back to take a lift and drop under penalty and then hitting the top of the trees with my attempt to clear them, We never found the ball and I gave Caroline the hole and the match.”
Hedwall got two birdies before the turn, using her power off the tee to set up 4s at the long sixth and ninth but she lost the seventh with a bogey and was three down at the turn.
Three putts at the 10th was the beginning of the end of the Woburn player’s brave bid to pull off a shock victory. Hedwall won that hole and also the 12th with a par to be only one down.
But Nicole wasn’t quite finished yet. She won the 14th with a par to go back to two up with four to play.
Hedwall birdied another long hole, the 15th to cut her deficit to one hole and she squared the match for the first time when Whitmore took three to get on the putting surface at the 16th
The short 17th was halved in pars before the English girl hooked into the trees at the 18th. It was the first time Hedwall had led in the match!
Two members of the Great Britain and Ireland Curtis Cup team, Holly Clyburn (Woodhall Spa) and Rachel Jennings (Izaak Walton), advanced with varying degrees of comfort. Holly won by 2 and 1 against Ami Storey (Ponteland) after being one up through 11 holes.
Rachel won by 6 and 5 over Germany’s Valerie Sternebeck, having gone two up by the fifth tee.
Giulia Molinaro was two up after four holes in her tie against Stacey Keating but the Australia and wiped out the deficit and established a one-hole advantage of her own after eight holes. That lead became two holes after 11 and Molinaro’s late challenge failed to catch the Aussie who won by one hole.
Camilla Hedberg went down by one hole to Scotland’s Laura Murray, recent winner of the St Rule Trophy over the Old Course, St Andrews. This was the tightest of contests with never a hole in it either way. It was square after four, square after eight and then the Spanish player edged into a one-hole lead after 14 holes.
Over the closing holes Murray, from Alford, squared the match and then won by one hole.
Fifth seed Taylore Karle from Scottsdale, Arizona went out by one hole to the 60th qualifier, Louise Larsson from Sweden.
Wales’ only two qualifiers for the match-play stages had the misfortune to meet each other in the first round. Amy Boulden, daughter of the Maesdu club professional and still only 16, won a very good match by 2 and 1 against Lucy Gould (Bargoed).
“I holed quite a few putts from inside the 10ft mark,” said Amy who led for the first time at the 12th. “There was a lot of good play. I was about two under par for the holes played.”
Curtis Cup Scot Pamela Pretswell fired four birdies but still lost by one hole to Spanish ace Carlota Ciganda who won this title three years ago at Alwoodley but lost in the final to compatriot Azahara Munoz at Harlech 12 months ago.
“I lost but I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed playing against such a very good player as Carlota,” said Pamela who birdied the thired and sixth to lead by two holes on the seventh tee.
Ciganda had an eagle at the ninth and also won the 10th with a birdie 2 and the 11th with a par to transform her fortunes into a one-hole lead.
Pretswell hung on in there, having holes in birdies but finally lost by one hole when Ciganda holed a 30ft putt.
The Spanish player had one eagle and three birdies to her credit.
That put Ciganda in against Scottish champion Kelsey MacDonald (Nairn Dunbar) in the round of the last 32. MacDonald had a 3 and 2 win over Germany’s experienced Pia Halbig.
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