Austrian teenager bids to repeat

English women's open amateur

stroke-play title win

Austria's Isabella Holpher will defend her title at the English women's open amateur stroke-play championship at Ipswich Golf Club, Suffolk.

The 18-year-old completed a remarkable 11-shot wire-to-wire victory 12 months ago at Coventry and now returns, attempting to become the first back-to-back winner since Jodi Ewart (now Jodi Ewart Shadoff) in 2007-08.

The top-ranked player in the field is World No. 23 Lily May Humphreys, from Stoke-by-Nayland, who arrives in Suffolk on the back of a remarkable season that has seen her win the Welsh and Irish Open Stroke Play Championship as well as the Annika Invitational Europe in Sweden.  The 17-year-old was also runner-up to Ellen Hume at the English Women’s Amateur Championship at Saunton.

Hume has returned to college in America but Humphreys is joined by Toy, Mimi Rhodes and Amelia Williamson who were also in the English team who won the recent Women’s Home Internationals at Downfield in Scotland. The victorious English Girls’ team at the concurrent Girls’ Home Internationals are represented in Suffolk by Jessica Baker, Rosie Belsham, Ellie Gower, Charlotte Heath, Thalia Kirby and Caitlin Whitehead. The latter finished second behind Germany’s Marie Bechtold at the English Girls’ Open Amateur Championship at The Gog Magog.

Another player to look out for is Finland’s Kerttu Hiltunen, who last year was a runaway winner of the English Girls’ Under 16 Open Amateur Championship and who returns to these shores alongside other Continental entrants from France, Germany Italy, Spain and The Netherlands.

The Scots are also out in force with a group including Penelope Brown, Louise Duncan, Chloe Goadby, Jasmine McIntosh, Lorna McClymont, Shannon McWilliam, Megan Robb and Clara Young.

The host club is represented by Vanessa Bell, Sharon Luckman and Abbie Symonds.

 The English Women’s Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship is contested over 72 holes. The full field play 18 holes on each of the first two days with the leading 40 players and ties returning to play 36 holes on the third day.  

Photos: Credit Leaderboard Photography.