Ireland’s Beth Coulter hit the ground running on her return from the USA last month and carried her fine form into the stroke play stages of the Women’s Amateur at Prince’s in Kent.
FORMAT: 36-hole stroke play qualifier and 6 rounds of matchplay
The Kirkistown Castle star also knows how to win leading events and will start her challenge for the biggest one of all as No 1 seed when the matchplay stages get under way tomorrow morning.
The Arizona State player backed up her opening 69 with a 70 today to finish three ahead of three of the big favourites for the title – American Curtis Cup player Latanna Stone (World No 19), Scottish powerhouse Hannah Darling (No 9) and World No 1 Ingrid Lindblad (Sweden). Also on two under was Japan’s Sera Hasegawa while the cut came at +7.
Coulter, who won both the Irish Girls and Women’s titles last year and last month came second in the Irish Open, will have to wait a while to discover her first round opponent. With the top 64 and ties making it through, those on the cut line will have to play a preliminary round in the morning ahead of the first round proper later in the day. Nine players finished in a tie for 62nd.
The Irish star was understandably pleased with her efforts as she bids to go deep in the competition for the first time. Last year she lost in the second round.
“Yeah, both days I hit it pretty good,” said the teenager, who was runner-up in the 2021 British Girls.
“Today I definitely didn’t hit it as good as I hit it yesterday but I hit some nice shots coming in and rolled a few putts in to make birdie and hung on for par.”
Coulter is a big matchplay fan but will decide her strategy once she has seen the pin positions.
“In stroke play, there are a few holes where you have to be a little careful and there’s definitely a few holes that you can go for… like six, hitting driver and you can get to the green.
“I mean, we’ll see where the pins are tomorrow, and kind of see the strategy for the match play.”
On another day where the windy conditions made scoring tough, she started the second round one behind Norway’s Silje Torvund Ihma and Germany’s Christin Eisenbeiss. However both overnight leaders struggled today in comparison while some of the heavyweights in the field, took advantage of their morning tee-off time to make a charge up the leaderboard.
World No 1 Lindblad had two eagles as she posted a 69 (-3), a score matched by Hasegawa. Stone went one better while Darling recorded another 71, bolstered by an eagle on 15, where she holed out from 25 feet.
Reigning champion Jess Baker also came good today, finishing in a tie for 23rd thanks to a 69 and a superb three-under back nine.
Coulter got off to a great start, birdieing two and four before dropping back with back-to-back bogeys at the next two holes.
However she pulled off one of the shots of the day at the ninth, firing a mid-iron to two feet from 180 yards. She added further birdies at 15 and 17 to get to five under par
The Irish player added: “I hit some great shots today but I also hit some silly shots. I guess I can tidy those up this evening and take the positives from today and just move on.”
For all the stroke play scores click here
To view the draw for the matchplay click here