Report by Jayne Staridas
Assitant Team Manager
On Monday, 9th July our Women’s A3 team were greeted to a cold, still morning at West Lakes Golf Club to take on the home team after narrowly qualifying for the A3 Final.
The undefeated West Lakes were hot favourites to win the flag on their home course, and after the first 3 holes four Glenelg players were down with one match square, everything seemed to be going as expected for our opponents. By the 9th hole however, things looked much brighter for Glenelg with all our players fighting hard. Wendy Vaughan, Jo Ricourt and Fiona Eblen were narrow leaders at 1 up, and playing with confidence.
Through the 12th hole, Wendy and Fiona were 3 and 4 up respectively and playing strongly, Jo Ricourt was square and still well and truly in her game. Jo Lendrum and Sue Raggatt were both fighting back from poor starts but unfortunately still trailing. With two matches up, two matches down and one all square, we were in with a chance, the result far from assured for either team. Two matches finished on the 14th green, unfortunately new player Jo Lendrum (undefeated all season) lost but Fiona Eblen won convincingly, having played some brilliant golf.
At one match a piece, it was only when Wendy Vaughan and Jo Ricourt went through the 15th hole dormie 3 up, that we dared hope that we might pull this off; we actually had a good chance to win!
Wendy won the par 3 16th hole to close out her match but Sue Raggatt lost on the 15th, so the teams were 2 – 2 and it all depended on Jo Ricourt, playing in her first Pennant season. After a nervous chip and a narrowly missed putt on the 16th, Jo was back to 2 up and facing the difficult 17th, a narrow hole with out of bounds and a wetland on the right. Both players made strong drives, but less than perfect second shots, Jo played a great shot from the large left fairway bunker to be short of the elevated green, her opponent chipped safely to 5 metres from just short. Needing to halve the hole to win, Jo coolly pitched over the bunker to 6 feet and sunk the putt for the half and the team win! What a great win for our team who were promoted into A3 after winning the A4 title in 2017.
Results
Glenelg 3 defeated West lakes 2
Sue Raggatt lost to Christine Hildyard 4/3
Fiona Eblen defeated Young Kim 6/4
Jo Lendrum lost to Gail Beaumont 5/4
Jo Ricourt defeated Liz Mann 2/1
Wendy Vaughan defeated Sue Clark 4/2
We were extremely pleased to provide Glenelg with a great start to our Club’s assault on the 2018 Pennants!
Good luck to all our teams in the Finals on Sunday!