Bonetti wins the 2010 Girls’ British Open Amateur Championship

For the second year in a row the Girls’ British open amateur championship has been won by a French player. Alexandra Bonetti, 18, from Paris and holder of the French women’s championship, followed in the footsteps of compatriot Perrine Delacour by winning the title at Royal Belfast Golf club last week. South Africa’s Connie Chen and Lara Weinstein qualified for the match play but both lost in the first round.

Alexaandra beat the 17-year-old Italian girls champion, Laura Sedda from Vicenza by 7 and 6 in a surprisingly one-sided final that last only 2 ½ hours.

A former winner of the Scottish Under-16 open title, Sedda looked to be going off her game towards the end of her morning semi-final which she won by one hole over Andrea Vilarasau (Spain), despite bogeying two of the last four holes and three-putting the last.
The Italian teenager never looked like getting back on the rails in the final despite being the player who knocked out title-holder Delacour in the second round and No 1 seed Julie Yang in the third.

Bonetti seized the initiative by holing a 40ft putt for a birdie 3 at the second and when Sedda bogeyed the third and fourth, the French girl was suddenly three up.

Sedda three-putted the seventh and eighth to go five down and when she was bunkered at the ninth, the Italian girl went six down, having reached the turn in an approximate 40 (five over par) to Bonetti’s one-under 34. Sedda’s woes continued. She drove into bushes to lose her fourth hole in a row and go seven down at the 10th. Sedda ended her bad run of bogeys by halving the short 11th in 3s but she was now seven down with seven to play. A half in 4s at the 12th ended the final with Bonetti, one under par, the winner by 7 and 6.

Later, Bonetti said she had started the tournament well (she was the first qualifying round leader with a two-under-par 68) and she had finished it well (one under par in the final).

“My putting was my strongest point. The greens were very good but the slopes were tricky to read,” said Alexandra who had signed a Letter of Intent to join Texas Christian University not this autumn, but next. “I want to take a year out to improve my English,” she said … in quite fluent English!

Laura Sedda felt that she was completely exhausted, having played practice rounds, then two qualifying rounds and six rounds of match-play.
“I am disappointed I did not play as well as I can in the final but I was too tired to do my best. But I am still happy that I have come here and finished as the runner-up to a very good player, Alexandra.”

Next year’s Girls British championship will be played over the Gullane No 1 course, East Lothian near Edinburgh.