Four under par with five to play then disastrous finish

MICHELE LETS LEAD CHANCE

SLIP AWAY IN PORTUGUESE

CHAMPIONSHIP

Curtis Cup team contender Michele Thomson from Ellon looked on course after 11 holes to take a clear lead in the opening round of the Portuguese women's open amateur golf championship at Benamor Golf Club on the Algarve today.

Then the 19-year-old Aberdeenshire champion, pictured right, and a member of the Ladies Golf Union Elite Squad paid a high price for two wayward drives. She drove into a water hazard for a triple bogey at the 14th and then went out of bounds off the tee at the next for a double bogey.
She spilled another shot to par in a bunker at the 16th on her way to finishing with a two-over-par 73 which had looked like being at least a 67 at one stage.
Earlier Michele had birdied the third, fourth, fifth, 10th and 11th with only one three-putt bogey, at the seventh, to be four under par on the 12th tee. She missed a three-foot birdie putt at the 13th - and it was all uphill after that.
Spanish teenage ace Carlota Ciganda, winner of the British women's open amateur championship at Alwoodley last June when she was taken to the 18th green in the quarter-finals by Michele Thomson, set the pace with a two-under-par 69, to lead by one shot from young Welsh girl Sahra Hassan (Vale of Glamorgan), who is in the LGU Elite Squad.
Kylie Walker (Buchanan Castle) had a double bogey at the 14th and dropped another late shot, at the 16th, on her way to a 75.
FIRST ROUND LEADERS
Par 71
69 C Ciganda (Spa).
70 S Hassan (Wal).
71 F Parker (Eng), B Genuini (Fra), H Aitchison (Eng).
72 F Combarieu (Fra), B Loucks (Wal), L Whittaker (Ger).
73 M Thomson (Sco), L Chamarin (Fra).
74 A Urchequi (Spa), E Gassiot (Fra).
Other scores:
75 K Walker (Sco).
76 S James (Eng), T Davies (Wal).
77 K Rands (Eng), C Lee (Eng), V Bradshaw (Ire).
78 C Douglass (Eng), A Storey (Eng).
79 N Kitching (Ire), G O'Leary (Ire), R W Thomas (Wal), N Hunter (Eng).
81 K Delaney (Ire).