England’s Hannah Burke capped a fantastic fortnight in Scotland with a top 20 finish in the Ricoh Women’s British Open.
Playing in the championship for the only second time, Burke, 27, from Welwyn Garden City, carded rounds of 74, 72, 71 and 71 on the Ailsa Course at Turnberry to end tied for 17th with a total of 288, level par, a week after finishing 6th in the Aberdeen Asset Management Ladies Scottish Open.
“The British Open is always special and I dreamed of this when I was 12 years old and started the game. This is definitely up there,” said Burke. “I’ve loved every minute of it. I’ve been struggling this year so far so the last two weeks have been positive.”
On the advice of life-long coach Brian Lewis, the father of European Tour player Tom Lewis, Hannah recently sent her to see Charley Hull’s former coach Lee Scarborough and she explained: “I’ve been struggling because I had the putting yips at the beginning of the year. I had to change everything and I’m now left below right and re programmed it. That was the only big thing that we changed because I was really struggling.
“Not too much on the long game. We’ve got a little bit taller and that’s about it really long game wise. The main thing is the putting, because I was having 38, 39 putts per round. I couldn’t produce any good scores, so I’m very happy with it.”
Hannah relishes playing in Scotland and recorded one of her previous best finishes, a tie for second at the 2013 Aberdeen Asset Management Ladies Scottish Open in cold and windy conditions at Archerfield Links in East Lothian.
“I like these conditions because I’m a ball striker. I was brought up at Gosling Range with Brian, so I prefer it when it gets windy. If it’s windy and miserable I’ll do alright,” she said.
Hannah’s next event is the Tipsport Golf Masters at Golf Park Pilsen in the Czech Republic.
