Championships - Ladies' British Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship 2009
« Back to news indexNews for this championship
19.08.2009
The going gets tough at Balgownie but Andre battles through.
Europe’s top-ranked female amateur, Lucie Andre France lived upto her rating by taming a 30mph southerly wind which wrecked so many scores at Balgownie today.
The 21-year-old from Lyon came finished between 5 and 6pm, when the wind was just about as strong as ever, with a brilliant round in the conditions of one-over-par 73 to lead by two strokes at the end of the first day of the British women’s open amateur championship, hosted by Royal Aberdeen Golf Club.
She did not go as far as to say “Wind? What wind?” but she gave the impression that it did not bother her in the slightest.
It certainly did not on the outward half when she had the half-gale at her back. Many competitors felt the wind was so strong that it was just as difficult to make the ball stop on the greens downwind as it was to reach them in regulation figures on the inward half.
“I like links golf and I expect to play in wind when I play links courses.” said Lucie whose competitive season started way back in January-February with a second in the Portuguese women’s open amateur, followed closed by victory in the Spanish equivalent.
A member of the Continent of Europe team who beat Great Britain & Ireland in the recent Vagliano Trophy match in Hamburg, Andre is a class act and she showed it with the lowest outward half by anybody in the field of 99.
Her two-under-par 34 included an eagle 3 at the 460yd par-5 sixth – a drive, six-iron and a 20ft putt – a birdie at the 353yd fourth – a rescue club off the tee, a 58 degree wedge and a 3ft putt.
On the downside she had a bad, almost unplayable lie in a bunker at the eighth and that cost her one of only four bogeys she had all day damage limitation of the highest order.
Into the wind, she bogeyed the 10th, the 12th and 16th but expected to and was just a tad annoyed that she missed a 6ft birdie chance at the last.
Andre bopes this is the last time she can play in the British championship – “I hope to be playing on the Ladies European Tour this time next year … I am going to the Qualifying School at the end of this season,” she said.
Vagliano Trophy player Danielle McVeigh from Northern Ireland is on her own in second place with a 76 (37-39), a shot ahead of GB&I team-mate in Hamburg, Rachel Jennings (Izaak Walton) (37-39) who shares third place with teenagers Caroline Karsten (35-41), an 18-year-old from the Netherlands and 17-year-old Nicola Ralinson (Leyland) who had halves of 39.
In mid-afternoon, Danielle McVeigh from Royal Co Down, winner of the Welsh open amateur stroke-play championship earlier in the season, underlined her class with three-over-par 75..
Six-footer Danielle felt the strong wind at her back on the outward half was no advantage at all because it made the judgment of pitch-and-run shots very difficult. The wind-assisted “run” often carried the ball through the back of the green.
“I’ve played a lot of links golf in high winds at my home course, Royal County Down. Knowing the yardages when playing in a gale is no help. You learn to develop an instinctive‘feel,’ for the strength of shot that’s needed, particularly downwind,”said Danielle, a former Texas A&M student who is now attending the University of Ireland, Maynooth near Dublin.
“I learned a lot about my own swing durng my two years in America. It was worth it for that alone.”
McVeigh’s only birdie came at the long second where she got down in two from 80yd.
“Thereafter it was damage limitation. I three-putted the third for a bogey but had only three more bogeys in the round – at the sevenh, 13th and 14th, so I was fairly pleased with that.
“I could and should have had a birdie at the 15th after I hit it in close with a seven iron but I missed the putt.”
Rachel Jennings from the Izaak Walton club, playing in the same threesome, was on par with McVeigh with an outward 37 – birdies at the second and sixth, bogeys at the first, seventh and ninth, but she had three bogeys to her playing partner’s two as they battled through the wind after the turn. Rachel bogeyed the 10th, 14th and 16th.
Many highly-rated and experienced players did not have their troubles to seek..
England’s left-handed champion Charlie Douglass (Brocket Hall) took 45 for the second nine to return an 85, the same score as France’s Marion Ricordeau, the third best female amateur in Europe, according to the European Golf Association rankings.
Welsh champion Tara Davies (Holyhead) had a 90.
Curtis Cup teenager Carly Booth (Comreie), who had an 82, said her putting was more affected by the high winds than the rest of her game.
“I don’t like putting in conditions like these. The ball bobbles about in the wind on the greens and you never feel in control of it,” said Carly.whose 19-year-old brother Paul came north from Comrie to lend support, complete with a haul of four gold medals for power-lifting at the Special Olympics at Leicster.
Several players were warned for slow play but the conditions were taken into consideration and they were not penalised. It could be a different story if the wind does not blow for the rest of the tournament.
The LGU is determined to lead the field in tackling the golf’s modern-day curse of slow play.
Do you have comments or questions about the LGU?
LGU legal disclaimer | Privacy statement | Copyright © 2012 - Ladies' Golf Union
Ladies' Golf Union, The Scores, St. Andrews, Fife, KY16 9AT
Tel: 01334 475811, Fax: 01334 472818