Golf: British golf superstars descend on Moortown

YORKSHIRE’S Rochelle Morris has placed second in both the English women’s amateur and English women’s open stroke play championships this year.
Rochelle MorrisRochelle Morris
Rochelle Morris

And this week she will go into the British ladies’ open amateur stroke play championship at Moortown as England’s second-ranked player in the Ascotgolf.com order of merit.

The Woodsome Hall player deflected congratulations for rising to such an exalted position, just behind Dorset’s Sophie Keech, who beat her narrowly in the quarter-finals of the English women’s open match play championship on her way to the title.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Bronte Law [English women’s amateur champion] has just had a good performance in the US Amateur, which carries a lot of points, so I’ll probably be down to third when the rankings are updated,” said the former Yorkshire amateur champion.

Even so, she has more than made up for an injury-hit 2014 season, which saw her just outside England’s top 50, climbing to a position where it seems her target of earning senior international recognition is almost certain to be met.

But first things first; Morris leads a 19-strong Yorkshire contingent into a competition starting today in which the opposition steps up a level from the England Golf events that she has excelled in this summer.

“There will be a lot of Europeans and I think a couple of Americans and a couple of players from Australia, so it’s a much higher standard,” she said ahead of this week’s practice days, which she is using to re-familiarise herself with a course she had not played for 18 months.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

There will be seven trophies at stake at the Stroke Play. The winner gets the Nicholls Trophy, the runner-up the Holden Trophy. The Taunton Trophy goes to the player with the lowest 18-hole score over the four rounds. The highest-finishing player aged under 23 will win the Duncan Salver. The Angela Uzielli Trophy goes to the highest finishing player aged 23 or over. The Dinwiddy Trophy will be won by the Under-18 player who finishes highest up the 72-hole standings. There is also the team award trophy staged in conjunction with the first two rounds of the championship.

There will be a cut to the leading 40 players and ties after 36 holes.

****

The prestigious Yorkshire Amateur Championship began yesterday and will be decided by a match play final tomorrow at Fulford in York.

The last Leeds Union player to win the title was Adam Frontal (Cookridge Hall) back in 2010.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Ben Sardo (Moor Allerton), reached the final two years 
ago.

Daniel Bradbury (Wakefield) continued his fine season with victory in the Yorkshire Boys Under-16s Amateur Championship at Doncaster last week.

Just three shots separated the top six players with Bradbury (71, 72) prevailing over Pannal’s William Eardley (72, 72), club-mate George Heath (75, 70) and Ilkley’s Gregor Miles (74, 72).

Daniel Lee, of Sand Moor, moved up the rankings after the Wakefield Open, recording 55 points in the nett competition, with a nett 74 to complement his fine showing at the LDUGC Stroke Play Championship where he scored 100 points.

Lee now has 225 points, just 25 points behind leader Nathan Ali of Cookridge Hall.

Related topics: