MICHELE BOOSTS HER CURTIS

CUP HOPES WITH THIRD-PLACE

FINISH IN PORTUGAL

Aberdeenshire champion Michele Thomson boosted her Curtis Cup selection hopes by finishing third – ahead of two other Ladies Golf Union Elite Squad players – in the Portuguese women’s open amateur golf championship at Benamor Golf Club on the eastern Algarve today.
In very windy conditions, 17-year-old Spanish ace Carlota Ciganda from the bull-run city of Pamplona won the title with a closing 74 for an eight-under-par total of 276.
Ciganda, who has a handicap of +5 and spreadeagled the field with an eight-under-par course record 63 on Saturday, won in the end by eight shots from Germany-based 18-year-old Florentyna Parker (73-284) with Thomson, pictured right, two shots back in third place with a 72 for 286.
Welsh Curtis Cup hopefuls Breanne Loucks and Sahra Hassan finished joint fourth on 289.
Michele Thomson had a brave run at reducing Ciganda’s nine-shot overnight lead. The 19-year-old from Ellon slashed the deficit to four by reaching the turn in one-under 35 to the Spanish girl’s 40. Michele birdied the fourth and seventh and bogeyed the eighth.
The turning point for Thomson came at the short 10th. She had a 10ft putt for a birdie 2 – but missed it and never holed another putt of any length after that. Having lost her momentum and bogeyed the 16th, Michele knew she needed a birdie 3 at the last to take second place from Florentyna Parker but she charged the first putt past and finished up taking three putts for a bogey 6.

Parker, who plays off +4 and whose father is a club pro in Germany, birdied the third but dropped shots at the fifth, eighth and 12th and, at that point, looked like losing second place to Thomson.

But Florentyna rallied with a birdie at the 13th. She dropped a shot at the 15th but was able to par the last three holes to hold on to second place, no mean feat in the swirling wind.
The Great Britain & Ireland selectors meet in early March to select the team of eight for the Curtis Cup match against the United States over the Old Course, St Andrews at the end of May. There is only one more winter tournament - the Spanish women's open amateur championship at the end of February - for the LGU Elite Squad players to impress.
Kylie Walker (Buchanan Castle), the only other Scot in the field, slipped down the final placings to joint seventh place with a 79 for 294 after a pair of 70s in the second and third rounds had given her a chance of a higher finish.
Kylie dropped five strokes over the last five holes with a bogey at the 14th and double boge3ys at the 16th and 17th for an inward 41.

LEADING FINAL TOTALS
Par 284 (4 x 71)
276 C Ciganda (Spa) 69 70 63 74.
284 F Parker (Eng) 71 67 73 73.
286 M Thomson (Sco) 73 72 69 72.
289 B Loucks (Wal) 72 71 71 75, S Hassan (Wal) 70 70 74 75.
291 B Genuini (Fra) 71 74 71 75.
294 A Goyos Ball (Spa) 76 74 71 73, K Walker (Sco) 75 70 70 79.
295 H Aitchison (Eng) 71 77 69 78, I Boineau (Fra) 75 75 75 70.
Other totals:
299 L Whittaker (Ger) 72 80 73 74, T Davies (Wal) 76 74 75 74.
300 R W Thomas (Wal) 79 75 74 72.
302 G O’Leary (Ire) 79 75 73 75, C Douglass (Eng) 78 74 74 76.
306 N Kitching (Ire) 79 75 77 75.
308 S James (Eng) 76 80 76 76.