SOUTHPORT, ENGLAND |
Mark Casey
,
the CEO of the Ladies’ European Tour,
added to the feel-good factor at the
Ricoh Women’s British Open when
he spoke of the rush of interest from
countries and resorts wanting to host
the Solheim Cup in 2015. La Manga and
Andalucia, two Spanish venues, are on
the list, as is England’s London Club and
Forest Pines in Scunthorpe. In the latter,
Tony Jacklin
, the former Open cham-
pion, will be playing his part in the fight
to win the fixture for his hometown.
Germany, Portugal, Norway, Aus-
tria and Czechoslovakia are the other
countries who are taking aim on the
29th October deadline for submissions
of interest.
“If,” said Casey, “we get one fabulous
offer at that point, we might seize it.
Otherwise, we will go down to a smaller
group.”
The venue for 2015 will be announced
at the 2011 match in Ireland.
The point put to
Laura Davies
was
that the Korean contingent must mar-
vel at how far removed her approach is
from theirs. Where Koreans will play
their practice rounds and spend the
rest of the day on the range, Davies’
tournament preparations are as
follows: She will take part in the pro-
am and will get to the course an hour
before a starting time. That, though, is
the sum total of her preliminaries.
“If one of our boys win the Open,”
said the 1986 British Women’s Open
champion, “they get knighted on the
spot. It’s always been the same.”
Juli Inkster
, after her opening 71,
said she had stopped talking about
retirement. She had told her husband
that she would be stepping off Tour
“at least 10 times” but had never quite
been able to bring herself to commit to
a retirement date.
The truth is that the 50-year-old is
reluctant to get out at all.
“The trouble,” she said, “is that
there’s nowhere to go after the regular
circuit. We just don’t have the same
senior set-up as the men.”
Inkster is not about to canvass for
invitations to the Champions Tour
but liked the idea of a mixed event at
the senior level. If there were such a
thing, she says she would bag
Freddie
Couples
as her partner.
Karen Stupples
’ comments about
Kelly Tidy
, her playing companion,
would have helped the 18-year-old
British Women’s Amateur champion to
feel rather better about a day when she
signed off with an eight for a 78. (The
eight was down to two balls struck out
of bounds from the tee.)
Julie Yang
, at 15, the youngest ever
player to qualify for the Ricoh, is mov-
ing on after one year at Loretto in
Edinburgh. Yang won a golf scholar-
ship to the famous Edinburgh school
and was churning out the golf results
as she studied. She captured the 2010
Welsh Open Stroke-Play champion-
ship, the Danish Amateur and finished
second in the German Stroke-Play.
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