TEENAGER Carly Booth shot a final-round 74 to finish tied 29th and was both the leading Scot and the top amateur at the Ladies' English Open won by Yorkshire's Rebecca Hudson yesterday at The Oxfordshire.
Booth, 16, who played for Great Britain and Ireland in last month's Curtis Cup at St Andrews, will be heading Scotland's line-up at the European Girls' Championship starting tomorrow at Murcar, and she admitted that playing alongside the professiona
ls in tough conditions had been the ideal preparation. In wind and driving rain – there was a short suspension for lightning in the afternoon – Booth had three birdies in the first 11 holes but had double-bogeys at the 12th and 17th and shed another shot at the last.
"This week has been a great experience and I really enjoyed it," said Booth. "Playing in LET events is definitely a good experience for me for the future. The weather was tough today. I was playing really well and then I just struggled on the last two holes. I could have done better but, overall, it was pretty good."
Hudson, who won the Tenerife Open two weeks ago, claimed her third Tour title with a great final round of 64 and a ten-under 206 total. She won by a shot from Derbyshire's Melissa Reid, who had a 69. Lynn Kenny and Kathryn Imrie both shot 74 and finished a shot behind Booth on six over, while rookie Jenna Wilson had a 76 for seven over and Julie Forbes, the fifth Scot to make the cut, closed with a 78 for ten over.
Hudson, the 29-year-old from Doncaster, fired eight birdies, with four on the front nine and four on the back to claim a first prize of almost £20,000.
She said: "Back-to-back wins, I can't believe it. To win in your home country is just fantastic. It's wonderful. And to have two English players at the top is something special as well. At the beginning of the day I knew that someone would have to shoot low to catch Mel but I didn't think this would happen. I hit some good shots and played the course the way I wanted to."
Playing in the final pairing, one group behind Hudson, Reid fired a final round 69 and finished on a nine-under-par total.
She missed a 10 foot birdie putt to catch Hudson on the par-five 17th and then had to settle for a regulation par at the last hole after pulling her approach shot into the rough. Her chip stopped two feet short of the hole. Reid said: "To be honest, I can't take anything away from Rebecca's 64. In these conditions it was phenomenal. I'm pretty gutted right now but I've got to stay patient and maybe the win will come pretty soon. I still made a couple of mistakes, which I want to erase."
Australia's Joanne Mills took outright third on six-under-par after a bogey-free 66 while Spain's Marina Arruti was fourth on five under. Wales' Becky Brewerton, who won last year at Chart Hills, tied for seventh with England's Lora Fairclough.
The full article contains 537 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
