TEENAGERS MICHELE AND KRYSTLE GO DOWN
FIGHTING IN THE QUARTER-FINALS AT LEEDS

Scotland’s last hopes, teenagers Michele Thomson and Krystle Caithness, went down fighting in the quarter-finals of the Ladies British open amateur golf championship at, for the first time since Wednesday afternoon, a dry day at Alwoodley Golf Club, Leeds.
The weather-hit championship which should have finished with an 18-hole final this afternoon (Saturday) will instead spill over into Sunday morning because so many hours of play have been lost because of relentess rain.
Michele from Ellon, Aberdeenshire and making her debut in the “British” at the age of 19 lost by two holes to the “wonder girl” of Spanish, even European amateur golf – Carlota Ciganda.
From Pamplona, 17-year-old Carlota is ranked the No 1 female amateur golfer in Spain, women and girls, and she was only 14 when she won the European women’s amateur title.
With a handicap of +4.8, Carlota is, on paper (and who would argue) the highest rated female golfer in Europe and possibly the world.
And yet Michele Thomson hung on to her coat-tails all the way. Two down to back-to-back birdies at the fourth and fifth, the long-hitting Scot clawed her way back to all square by holing a 15ft birdie putt at the 15th.
The long 16th was then havled in birdie 4s before Michele made the fatal mistake of going for a big drive down the 17th – and landed in the ferocious heather-and-long-grass rough which borders almost every fairway and had Ciganda using a five-wood off the tee most of the time to make sure she landed on the short stuff.
MAJESTIC APPROACH SHOT
One down now playing 18th, Michele eventually conceded the 18th after the Spaniard majestically hit a towering approach shot which came to rest 5ft from the stick while Miss Thomson was through the back in two.
“I played out of my skin – and still I was beaten.Carlota is some player. She has to be the best player I have ever come up against. But I enjoyed it and, with a little bit of luck, I might even have won,” said Michele, whose oil executive father Graham caddied for her all week.
Michele, the Aberdeenshire county champion and beaten semi-finalist in the Scottish women’s championship at Barassie last month, has not been given a full cap by Scotland – yet.
She has been so impressive at Leeds this week, Michele might even be given a Great Britain & Ireland cap in next month’s Vagliano Trophy match against the Continent at Fairmont St Andrews before the Scots selectors get round to it.
Krystle Caithness from Cellardyke, Fife and a member of the St Regulus club, St Angus is already a GB&I international. She helped the squad of five to win the Commonwealth tournament in South Africa last month and is a certainty for a place in the team of nine for the “Vagliano.”
Last year she lost by 4 and 3 to the Swedish 6ft 2in blonde ace Anna Nordqvist in the third round of this championship at Royal County Down.
REPEAT OF LAST YEAR'S MATCH
Today, their paths crossed again in the quarter-finals, and Anna this time beat the Scot, who leaves for a four-year scholarship at Arizona State University in the autumn, by 3 and 2.
As Krystle’s father-caddie Jim summed it up: “Anna won but not quite as easily as the score suggests. Krystle made a couple of mistakes that cost her victory in the end. The Swede was three under par at the finish and she is a great player but I am proud of the way my daughter played. Her turn is coming.”
“I thought I played well, better than I did against Anna last year. She was three or four under par, so I could not have been all that far behind her,” said Krystle.
Nordvist, a former British girls champion and beaten finalist in this championship last year, is a student at Arizona State University and was ranked No 2 in the US college women’s season just finished.
She birdied the fourth and fifth on her way to a four-hole lead at the turn but gritty Krystle came back at her to win the 14th and 15th to be two down with three to play.
Nordqvist then showed her class under pressure – an eagle 3 at the long 16th to finish the match a 3 and 2 winner.
In the semi-finals, Nordqvist plays Britain’s last survivor, Rachel Bell from Ganton, playing in her home county of Yorkshire, and Carlota Ciganda meets Caroline Westrup (Sweden), a Florida State University student who is ranked No 3 in the States.
Caroline Westrup beat Welsh Curtis Cup player Breanne Loucks from Wrexham by 5 and 4 after winning five out of six holes from the fifth. Caroline was three under par for the holes played. Breanne won only one hole - and she had to birdie the first to do that.
RACHEL WINNER AT 21ST
Rachel Bell survived a nail-biting match first thing in the morning, coming back from one down on the 18th tee, to oust Sahra Hassan (Vale of Glamorgan) by holing a long birdie putt at the 21st.
Not surprisingly with that kind of "practice" behind her, Rachel came out of the traps like a greyhound less than 30min later in her quarter-final tie against Liz Bennet (Brokenhurst Manor).
Miss Bell birdied the first three holes to be three up on the fourth tee. That lead became four after 10 and five with a birdie at 13th from the Yorkshire player.
Rachel was showing no mercy and she wrapped up a place in the semi-finals with a win at the next hole for a 6 and 4 triumph. Rachel, like all the other winners of the quarter-finals, was three under par in perfect conditions for good scoring -no wind and holding greens.


RESULTS:

QUARTER-FINALS

C Ciganda (Spain) bt M Thomson (McDonald Ellon) 2 holes.
C Westrup (Sweden) bt B Loucks (Wrexham) 5 and 4.
A Nordqvist (Sweden) bt K Caithness (St Regulus) 3 and 2.
R Bell (Ganton) bt E Bennett (Brokenhurst Manor) 6 and 4.