O’Leary’s delight at Welsh progress
WALES just missed out on a first success in the Girls’ Home Internationals since 1999, with a final-day defeat to eventual champions England at Ballybunion, Ireland.
But Wales Golf director of performance Gillian O’Leary was delighted with the progress they made and believes there are plenty of positives to take from the display.
It was all square after the first day as Wales and Scotland tied 4.5-4.5, which was the same result between Ireland and England.
Hosts Ireland were Wales’ next opponents on day two and despite trailing 2-1 after the foursomes, Wales went on to claim an important 5.5-3.5 victory.
England also beat Scotland 7-2, which set up a winner-takes-all clash between Wales and England on the final day.
England took the early advantage with victory in the opening two foursomes but Ffion Tynan (Minchinhampton) and Darcey Harry (Vale Resort) pulled a point back for Wales before Tynan then beat Caitlin Whitehead 3&1 to level the score.
Defeats for Carys Worby (Newport Links) and Harry put England back in control before Lea-Anne Bramwell’s (Abergele) two-hole triumph against Ebonie Lewis revived their title hopes.
However, a 5&3 defeat for Ffion Vineall (Newport) handed the match, and the title, to England while Eleanor Willis (St Pierre) bagged a consolation point with a one-hole win against Euphemie Rhodes.
“They did great, they were in with a chance of winning right up until the last day so they competed very well,” said O’Leary.
“They are a very talented bunch of girls, they’ve worked really hard and been really well supported by Paul Williams and the rest of the performance team, not just in the past year but the last number of years.
“I think it’s coming together now for the girls and they are starting to believe more in themselves.
The runners-up position capped off a fantastic year for many of the squad after Bramwell’s Welsh Ladies Amateur triumph, Harry’s win at the Mid Wales Girls’ Open Championship, Tynan’s Scottish Girls’ Open glory and Worby’s recent Welsh Girls Match Play triumph.
O’Leary feels the girls will come back stronger next year with the majority of the squad set to stay together.
“They are still quite a young team so a lot of them have another year at least at girls’ level,” she continued.
“I think they know now that they can do it and they’ll be raring to go for next year. A lot of them would have never been in a position like that before so they’ve taken an awful lot from it.”
The boys didn’t fare so well as they finished with the wooden spoon at Royal Dornoch, Scotland.
They lost all three games to finish bottom of the table.
However, three of the squad will look to bounce back at the World Amateur Team Championships for the Espírito Santo Trophy at Carton House, in Ireland later this month.
Newport’s Jordan Ryan, Kath O’Connor, of West Byfleet, and Bethan Morris (Tenby) make up the threestrong squad that will be compete for the Espirito Santo Trophy, which gets underway on August 29.
Jordan Price-Davies is the only member of the Glamorganshire squad taking part in today’s Welsh Open Stroke Play Championship at Pyle & Kenfig.
Welsh Amateur champion Thomas William (Wrexham), joint Berkshire Trophy winner Matt Roberts (Vale Roberts) and Welsh Boys Match Play champion Ben Davies (Southerndown) will lead the Welsh charge.
The championship is played over 72 holes with the first two days consisting of 18-hole rounds.
The top 45 and ties will then advance to Sunday’s 36-hole finale.
There is also a nations team event with countries allowed to name two teams made up of two or three players with the two lowest scores in each round counting towards the team’s total.