Maisie wins the Ladies County Championships

Stourbridge Golf Club hosted this year’s Ladies Worcestershire & Herefordshire County Championships, played over the bank holiday weekend, starting 29^th April.

The first day is played as 36 holes of strokeplay format, where 18 holes in the morning is played for the Grace Boulton salver, and in the afternoon for the Jessica Smith Trophy for the best 36 hole net score (for under 25 year olds).

With the course playing firm, scoring was challenging for all of the players, Gaudet Luce’s Maisie Whittall shot 80 and 76 in the strokeplay stage and won the Jessica Smith Trophy with a net 36 hole score of 148.  Maisie also shot the joint lowest 36 hole gross score (runner-up on countback), with the ladies strokeplay positions setting out the draw for the following knockout matchplay stages.

The knockout stages are played in scratch matchplay format over 18 holes, with matches in the morning and afternoon.  With rain over night softening the greens slightly, this made the course more scorable and some fantastic golf was played throughout the field.  In the quarter final Maisie played against our own Kerry Hobbs, who got through the last 16 with a victory over Amelia Bryan.  Maisie was up quickly in the match and steadily built a strong lead, Kerry made a good fightback through the back 9 but couldn’t undo the lead Maisie had built up, and the match finished on the 17^th hole where par from Maisie was enough to win the match 3/1.

In the semi final Maisie played Lesley Fox, the County Ladies Captain and the pair fought a tough match.  Maisie lost the first hole, but quickly pulled this back to lead 1up by the 3^rd hole. From there Maisie remained ahead throughout the match but never leading by more than 2 holes, with the pair continually trading holes.  Maisie was dormie 2, but Lesley squared the match on the 18^th and the pair went to a playoff back down the first hole, where Maisie won the match with a par.

With only 20 minutes rest after the semi final finished, Maisie was straight back out for the final vs Yen Pham from Moseley Golf Club.  Maisie saved some of her best golf for the final, and put on a relentless performance that remained unwavering from any distraction.  Maisie took the lead early in the match, and steadily continued to build, taking a 2up lead at the turn.  On the back 9 Maisie continued to pile on the pressure and took a “dormie 4” shot lead into the 15^th hole.   Maisie reached the right-side of the par 5 fringe of the green in 2, chipped on and sank her birdie putt to win the match 5/3 and be crowned champion!

Congratulations to Maisie on becoming Gaudet Luce’s first ever Ladies County Champion!

Flying start to the season for Sydney

Droitwich Golf Club hosted the opening Junior Open Girls event for 2022 on April 18^th, which forms part of the County Girls Order of Merit. The weather was very kind, remaining dry and sunny for most of the day and as expected, it was a competitive field of golfers, spanning a wide range of handicaps and clubs.

It was a typically strong representation from Gaudet Luce, with five girls from the junior section playing and brilliantly, our own junior section co-captain Sydney Blanchenot managed to claim the winners trophy with a fantastic net score of 66!

Despite starting very slowly, finding the out of bounds at the rear of the 1^st green, and struggling down the 2^nd, Syd managed to turn her game around and shot net birdies on the following 3 holes, finishing the front 9 with 47, 1 under net.  The back nine was much more consistent, with a critical birdie on the par 5 14^th helping complete the back nine in 42 shots and getting her the victory. Congratulations also to Amelia Bryan, who claimed 3^rd place overall with a gross score of 82 and another Gaudet Luce girl on the winners podium!

Just to add to Syd’s fine run of form, she managed to follow up her Droitwich win with another victory in the PHE Trophy at Gaudet on Saturday 23^rd April, managing to shoot an amazing 58 net! The highlight of her round being 4 consecutive gross birdies from holes 3 through to 6!  Syd’s fine form has resulting in a handicap cut of 4 shots, down to 16.

Well done Sydney, congratulations on a fine start to your captaincy!

Special mentions are also due to Isabelle Edwards, who can count herself very unlucky not to have won with a fantastic score of 65 net, and Niamh Bush with a great 67 net, both seeing deserved handicap reductions and showing the boys how it’s done!