FORMAT: 36-hole stroke play / 5 rounds of match play
England Seniors international Catherine Rawthore withstood a late fightback from her national team-mate Tracey Williamson (Sheringham) to claim her second England Women’s Seniors title at High Post Golf Club in Wiltshire on Friday.
Six years after winning it for the first time at Ross on Wye, the Sale player closed things out 2&1 but not before her opponent recovered from four down on the back nine. Rawthore had missed a golden opportunity to go five up with five to play – she ended up losing 13 – and was “mightily relieved” to have held her nerve on the 17th.
The finalists were both part of the England Seniors team that won the the Home Internationals at Woodhall Spa last August.
“I was a bit annoyed after 13,” said the 2021 Northern Vets champion. “But after that I aimed to par in and just try and make Tracey have to go for it, which was really difficult because the greens were so hard. They were very firm and were the course’s main defence really so I was very pleased my short game was so strong. It had to be.”
The difficulty of the putting surfaces, made even harder by the windy conditions, was perfectly illustrated at the first where the Norfolk golfer, faced with a long birdie putt, caught the wrong side of the break and ended up 20 feet away in three. She then just missed with her par effort.
Rawthore’s four was enough to go one up and she doubled her lead two holes later thanks to another par as her opponent, again facing a birdie putt from distance again took three to get down.
On a day when par golf was certainly going to get the job done, a four at the stroke index one seventh was always going to prove tough to beat and it was their that Williamson, mum of recently-announced Curtis Cup player Amelia, halved the gap.
However her opponent regained a two-shot lead at the very next and then at the par three 11th Williamson’s tee shot found sand and she couldn’t get up and down from a tough lie, which meant she dropped further behind
Rawthore turned the screw with the first birdie of the match at the par five 12th where her opponent found sand with her approach and struggled to get it out.
And then she looked set to further extend her lead at the next hole as Williamson duffed her chip while Rawthore had hit a superb recovery pitch to three feet. However the Sheringham player holed out from distance for an unlikely four and took the hole as the Cheshire player missed the short par attempt.
At 15, Rawthore leaked her drive up the right and then failed to get up and down which meant her lead was down to two and Williamson hung on in the tie at the next, holing out from seven feet for a par.
But the end was nigh
At the par three 17th both players didn’t challenge the pin with their tee shots and long-time leader’s rock solid chipping came to the fore at the pivotal moment. She stuck her pitch to three feet and holed the par putt while Williamson couldn’t force it in from distance to extend the game any longer.
Rawthore added: “Tracey had been playing so well so I just wanted to not get behind. To win the first and stay ahead all the way through was really pleasing.”