It’s not long now before some of the players within our La Grande Mare Hotel sponsored Guernsey Women’s Golf Development Squad travel to compete in their first away team match.
On Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 October 10 squad members, captained by Angela Goddard, will be travelling to the Isle of Wight to play against some top women golfers at both Freshwater Bay Golf Club http://www.freshwaterbaygolfclub.co.uk/ and Shanklin & Sandown Golf Club https://www.ssgolfclub.com/ (the golfing venues of the 2011 Isle of Wight NatWest International Island Games).
This match has been set up to provide our players with the opportunity to compete off-island as a team largely due to the fact that the Channel Islands women’s golf inter-insular is currently only a bi-annual event (the next takes place in September 2020).
Our selected players are: Veronica Bougourd, Roch Vaudin, Kay Mapley, Di Aitchison, Mandy Webber, Nova Cauwels-Wigan, Di Stenner, Sally Ingrouille, Mary Bate, Bonny Hamilton and Janette Riley (who is our non-travelling reserve).
The format of play will be similar to the inter-insular; a 4-ball match on Saturday followed by singles on Sunday both of which will help our players gain valuable experience in a match situation. All matches will be played off scratch to keep up the momentum of match play at a high level, which is vital for the continued development of our players. The team will be practising hard over the next few weeks to ensure we get the pairings working well together.
The trip has been funded by the players themselves and kindly supported with a small subsidy from the Guernsey Golf Union http://guernseygolfunion.com/ which has helped to keep the travel costs for each player at an affordable level.
This is our first away fixture since the start of our development squad and after a lot of practice and training over the spring and summer months is the beginning of our journey to Guernsey 2021 NatWest International Island Games and beyond.
Let’s cheer them on and wish them a great weekend of golf!
We see this as the first of a number of on and off-Island matches that, moving forward, will involve all of the squad players challenging them at a higher level with a view to not only improving the level of play but showcasing what opportunities ladies have to look forward to when starting to play the game.
Next stop a match in Jersey against a combination group of players from all the clubs.
– Phil Sykes PGA Pro
