The day after the Ricoh Women’s British Open, a Sponsors Day took place on the Marquess’ Course at Woburn, which gave the event’s sponsors and partner organisations a chance to play round the championship course. The LET saw this as an opportunity to provide a unique playing experience to a group of elite young girls from the local area so it offered its place in the event to the Bucks County Ladies Golf Association. Three of the association’s elite girls – Chloe Li, Amelia Curtis and Eleanor Barnett – were invited to play in the team and they were accompanied by their County Junior Organiser, Sue Ashworth.
Talking enthusiastically about the day, Sue said: “After a 6.30am breakfast we started on the par 5 15th hole at 8:00am, one of the hardest starting holes on the course which was reflected in our poor team score on that hole. However, we soon ‘got with the programme’ and were spurred on by the huge score board at 18 reflecting the day’s live scoring.”
After walking in the footsteps of Ariya Jutanugarn who had won the Ricoh Women’s British Open the previous day, the team had amassed 74 points which meant that they only just missed out on 3rd prize. However, Chloe Li took the ladies longest drive prize and Amelia Curtis took the ladies nearest the pin prize.
Mike Round, the LET’s Director of Development commented: “Part of our development strategy is to try to bridge the gap between the elite amateur level and the professional game and we saw this as a fantastic opportunity to give to a group of aspiring youngsters. We were pleased that we could give them the chance to play round a championship course and experience what it might be like playing as a Professional golfer. Hopefully, walking up the 18th in front of the grandstands and leaderboard will have inspired the girls to want to continue to progress in the sport and maybe compete on the LET in the future.”
During the lunch and after the presentation, several of the other teams playing in the event came up to the girls to congratulate them on their performances on the course and how they conducted themselves off the course. All of the girls left the event with some amazing memories of the day, a wonderful goody bag each courtesy of Ricoh and lots of photos for the album.
