Welsh international Evans won the Monmouthshire women's
championship for the second time in three years thanks to a 2&1 victory
over Pontnewydd’s Danielle Cobley in the final at Woodlake Park.
Jessica Evans meets a familiar trophy.
The Newport golfer had to come from behind to take the
spoils as she was one down going through the 11th. But she lifted
her performance up another notch to take a succession of holes and put herself
two up leaving the 16th green. Halving the next hole saw her take the Cup.
In the absence of defending champion Lauren Hillier (also of
Newport) due to work commitments, it was the predicted final as Evans and
Cobley were the top two qualifiers from the strokeplay and both always seemed
to be in control of their matches.
In the round of 16, Evans had seen off Dewstow’s Catherine
Nutley 4&3, before beating Nutley’s club-mate Patricia Fernon by two holes
in the quarter-finals. Cobley had beaten Pontypool’s Jessica Gabriel 5&4
and St Pierre’s Rhiannon Thomas by two holes to get to the semi-finals, and
both players beat their respective opponents 3&2 to set up their final
clash - Evans over club-mate Jordan Ryan and Cobley against Cerys Jenkins (Bryn
Meadows).
At Glamorgan Links, Birch overcame a tricky semi-final with
Katie Westphal on her way to winning the Glamorganshire Ladies’ County
Championship against club-mate Cheryl Weston.
Having beaten Abigail Dyment-Jones 8&6 in the round of
16 and Celia Howells (Vale Resort) 7&6 at the quarter-final stage,
spectators would have been expecting the reigning Welsh Colleges Champion to
have made equally easy work of the final day.
But that wasn’t to be the case, and Creigiau’s Westphal
pushed her fairly close before eventually succumbing 3&2.
Birch then met Weston in the final, who had seen off the
challenge of Ridgeway’s Christina Williams 5&3 in the morning’s other
semi-final. That result continued a fine couple of days for her too, as she had
overcome St Mary’s Joan Smith 5&3 in the round of 16, but had then been
pushed to the limit before triumphing in a marathon 20-hole encounter with Jill
Joseph (Creigiau), who had qualified second behind Birch going in to the
matchplay.
But something between the two had to give, and it proved to
be a closer affair in the end then it first seemed. Birch raced in to a
four-hole lead after 10, but Weston immediately cut the deficit back to two
holes to remain in touch.
But she could never peg the youngster back completely, and
Birch took the 14th, before the 15th was halved, and her third shot on the par
five 16th landed just 18 yards away from the pin.
At that point, Weston conceded to hand her young rival the
title.
0 comments:
Post a Comment