The mother of all wins...
WHEN Liana O’Sullivan encouraged her mother, Hilja, to take up golf again, little could they imagine that they would be winning the world’s largest golf tournament within eight years.
But Hilja and Liana, from the Stocksbridge & District club in Sheffield, enjoyed a day to remember yesterday at the Marriott Forest of Arden as they lifted the Daily Mail Foursomes trophy after two emphatic victories.
The O’Sullivans beat Karen Ashcroft and Cathy Downey, from the Slinfold club in Sussex 5&4 in the final after a 4&3 victory in the morning semi-finals against Carole Ryder and Gill Singh, from the Tytherington club in Cheshire.
Hilja, 63, said: ‘I could not believe we were coming here in the first place. I never imagined we would actually win it.’
Now Liana, 23, a three- time Sheffield and district champion, will be under pressure to hand out the drinks to members when she returns to her job behind the bar at the Stocksbridge club.
Defeat for Ashcroft and Downey, who beat Truro’s Sarah- Jane Boyd and Nathalie John in the semi-finals, followed their disappointment last year, when they missed out on a place in the final by one shot.
Paul Williams was not even sure he would be able to stay long enough for the men’s final, with his wife, Marie, expecting their second child in three weeks’ time.
But the phone didn’t ring and Williams, with Martyn Walker, from the Forest of Dean, triumphed in the men’s final 2&1 against Andy Hills and Peter Smith, from Harefield d Place in Middlesex.
Williams must be one of the more unorthodox golfers to lift the trophy, playing with his left hand below his right in a right-handed stance and putting left-handed.
‘I am naturally left-handed but my y dad bought me some right-handed clubs when I started and I didn’t t have the heart to change,’ he said.
It worked a treat as his fine e approach play and Walker’s solid putting turned a two-hole deficit t after five holes into a two-hole advantage by the 10th. It was the second time Hills had been disappointed in finals week, having lost in the quarter-finals in 2007. For more information and results from this year’s tournaments, go to www.mailgolf.co.uk