Former amateur golf champion Liz Pook

MRS LIZ Pook who, as Elizabeth Chadwick, won the British women’s open amateur golf championship in 1966 and 1967, has died at her home in the south of England.

She was born in Inverness in 1943 when her father was training with Sunderland Flying Boats at Invergordon.

After the war, the Chadwick family settled in Cheshire and her golfing career blossomed in the 1960s.

She first came to the fore on the national front when she reached the final of the English women’s amateur championship at Liphook in 1963. She was beaten in the final by Angela Bonallack.

Mrs Pook played for GB and Ireland in the 1966 Curtis Cup match, in a team which included fellow Scots Belle Robertson, Joan Hastings (Rennie) and Marjory Fowler (Ferguson) at Hot Springs, Virginia, as well as theVaglianoTrophy matches against Europe in 1963 and 1967.

She was also a member of the GB and Ireland team in the 1967 Commonwealth Tournament.

Mrs Pook, who had earlier knocked out the legendary French player Catherine Lacoste, beat Vivien Saunders in the 1966 British women’s open amateur championship final at Ganton and became one of the few players to win the British title two years in a row when she beat Mary Everard in the 1967 final at Harlech.

She retired from the bigtime amateur golf scene after that to have a family — a son and a daughter.

Mrs Pook was left paralysed from the waist down after a back operation for a slipped disc, an injury received playing tennis, went badly wrong in 1986.

She continued to lead as active a life as possible and died suddenly at home.