Malton final triumph is Emma’s crowning glory
FORMER Curtis Cup star and European champion Emma Brown rates victory in The Mail on Sunday Classic with her battling team-mates from Malton & Norton as her greatest achievement.
Brown has represented Great Britain and Ireland in three campaigns as Emma Duggleby and also won the British Amateur title in 1994 and the English Amateur twice but victory in the Spanish resort of El Rompido is up there with them all.
‘It’s definitely as special. It’s the biggest achievement for the club,’ said Brown, who has played there since she was 12.
The Yorkshire outfit had plenty of support and looked unstoppable in the world’s largest golf club team event after beating Accrington & District 5-0 in the semi-finals on the North Course but tiny Gosport & Stokes Bay came close to causing an upset.
They led in three of the five matches after eight holes and were all square in another. The Hampshire club, who have just 29 members and only eight eligible for the competition, knocked out Oxford Ladies in the semi-finals when Sarah Greenaway won at the first extra hole. Mo Browne, off 16, secured the first point for Gosport winning 3&2 but tricky windy conditions and fast greens saw Malton’s experience turn the tie around to triumph 3½-1½.
Greenaway, playing off 18, went two up after three holes against Brown but the plus three handicapper crept back at the ninth as her class told and she eventually won 5&3.
Brown said: ‘We’re all lower handicappers, so we’re used to giving shots and we just dig our heels in and get on.
‘I was a bit nervous out there. You want to do well and the scoreboard did not look great to start with.
‘We had got this far so you want to finish the job off and it’s great that we have done. It made me feel emotional. We now want to come back and defend the title.’