Ladies 2007 club champion

After her easy win in the junior club champion class we were hoping that the ladies championship would pose more of a challenge.

As a twelve year old champion, Leela was becoming quite an outstanding golfer.

Unfortunately that was not to be the case and many of Leela's nearest challengers found excuses or had good reasons not to take part in the tournament.

That left her with three rounds to play with no realistic challenge. I even found it difficult to motivate her to play well in those rounds.

The weather was also not too kind and her main target of improving her handicap appeared to be quite unrealistic.

So out she went in the strongest group and as expected her two partners offered little challenge or motivation. She came in a few hours later with a disappointing score but had left her partners miles behind.

Luckily, a lady in the second group posted the same first round score as Leela. This was all the motivation she needed and she immediately headed for the practice green to correct a couple of short game errors that had caused her poor score.

She posted a commendable nine over for the second round which now left her nearest challenger 17 shots adrift. On the Sunday she posted an even better eight over par round, improving her handicap to 7.8 and winning the title by 35 shots.

Here is the final putt on the 54th hole...

Leela performs best under pressure and I will need to come up with something for her future tournaments to move this onto the next manifesting plane.

During the third round, I met up with her on the eighth hole when she was lying at five over par. Five holes later and five bogeys later I said to her,

"Look Sweetheart, it is just one of those days where you have got it all in the bag with no real challenge."

I was delighted to hear that this wasn't the case when she retorted with the following,

"I am no longer playing to be club champion, I am playing to keep or improve my handicap."

"Go on you!" I thought to myself and anticipated that the last five holes would be great to watch. When Leela is in the mood she can produce poetry on the course.

She immediately split the fairway with her next drive and proceeded to attack the pin with her approach. Her pitchmark was about 6" from the hole leaving her a 5' putt for birdie which she middled perfectly.

I raced off to collect her Mother who had rarely seen Leela playing in this mood and we joined her again at the short 16th.

Unfortunately she pushed her 5 iron into the greenside bunker and Helen thought Leela was perhaps a little put off by her arrival.

It cheered both of us up quite a bit when she told us of her birdie on the 15th to add to the one on the 14th. She was now back to 8 over and three pars on the last three would be under handicap.

Leela then splashed out of the bunker and slotted a ten footer in for par. She drilled in one of a similar length for par on the difficult 17th and had a tap in for par on the 18th which she did to a thunderous applause from a few onlookers, Helen and myself.

For us, it was the highlight of the weekend and a finish that belongs to a true champion.

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