Three South Africans qualify at Ladies British Amateur
Iliska Verwey continued her good form in the second qualifying round of the Ladies British Open Amateur being contested at Royal Portrush links on the Northern Ireland coastline this week. She carded a one-under 73 to finish on level par on 148.
After an indifferent 80 in round one, Kim Williams came back with a level par 74 qualify on +6 and Bertine Strauss also improved returning 77 to qualify on +7 (155).
Spanish Champion Camilla Hedberg leads qualifiers with eight-under 140.
Sweden’s Nathalie Mansson shot 10 birdies for a super score of seven-under-par 67 in the second qualifying round on another wind-free day.
But in the morning’s perfect conditions for low scoring that fine effort still did not give her the top seed role among the 64 qualifiers for the match-play stages.
Just after 1pm Camilla Hedberg, recent winner of the Spanish women’s (close) amateur championship tagged a five-under-par 69 on to her first-day 71 and so set the clubhouse target of eight-under-par 140. It was still unchallenged when the eliminating contest ended before 8pm.
Nathalie Mansson had held the lead on five-under 143, having improved by nine shots on her Tuesday score of 76.
Late in the day Sweden’s Louise Kristersson birdied the last four holes for a 69 for a total of 142, which made her the No 2 qualifier.
Report on Day 2 received from WGSA President Cynthia Rayner:
Today, conditions started out far better and continued to improve through the morning. Kim had the early start (06h41)and whilst her putter was still cold, she was much happier with her game. With a birdie on the 17th and an eagle on the 18th, she managed to finish on level par (39,35)+6.
Iliska continued playing excellent golf with a 3 under on the front nine, and whilst a few wayward shots cost her on the back nine, she ended the round 1 under, so level for the qualifying rounds.
Bertine played “adventure” golf today and said she was surprised that her score wasn’t far worse than the +3 today (39, 38) making her +7. We kept on checking the live scoring, as she was the borderline one, and as the weather started deteriorating in the afternoon, so we were able to breathe a little easier. Tiffany and Henriette had to contend with these awful conditions in the afternoon, but came back with credible scoring today : Henriette 3 over, Tiffany 8 over.
I will study the scores later at the club, but I think that if you are more than +4 after Round 1, you are pretty much out of it. Note that the CSS for Round 1 was 78.
So, Kim (49) starts the Match Play against Valerie Sternebeck (16) of Germany at 07h54; Iliska (21) against Patricia Sanz Barrios (44) of Spain at 08h50; and Bertine at 11h06 (55) against Cecilia Cho (10) of New Zealand. And we have woken up to another day of showers plus wind plus cold. Out with the beanies and gloves!
