Three Scots in Hamburg line-up: Pretswell, Walker & Watson

Maguire twins (14)

named in GB&I

team for Vagliano

Trophy match

NEWS RELEASE ISSUED BY THE LADIES GOLF UNION

There are seven new Great Britain & Ireland caps in the team of nine selected for the Vagliano Trophy match against the Continent of Europe at Hamburg Golf Club, Germany on Friday and Saturday, July 24 and 25.
The team, to be captained by Mary McKenna with Tegwen Matthews as manager, is:

JODI EWART (Catterick), Age 21.
RACHEL JENNINGS (Izaak Walton), Age 20.
LEONA MAGUIRE (Slieve Russell), Age 14 (pictured above right)
LISA MAGUIRE (Slieve Russell), Age 14 (pictured above left)
DANIELLE McVEIGH (Royal Co Down Ladies), Age 21.
PAMELA PRETSWELL (Bothwell Castle), Age 20.
RHIAN WYN THOMAS (Vale of Glamorgan), Age 22.
KYLIE WALKER (Buchanan Castle), Age 22.
SALLY WATSON (Elie & Earlsferry), Age 17.
Reserves:
1 KELLY TIDY (Royal Birkdale), Age 17.
2 HANNAH BARWOOD (Knowle), Age 18.
3 CARLY BOOTH (Comrie), Age 16.
4 LAURA COLLIN (John O’Gaunt), Age 22.

None of the team members played in the biennial Vagliano Trophy match at Fairmont St Andrews in 2007 but Jodi Ewart (Catterick) and Sally Watson (Elie & Earlsferry) were members of the Great Britain & Ireland team of eight for last year’s Curtis Cup match against the United States over the Old Course, St Andrews.
Making history as the youngest ever to be selected to play for the combined Great Britain & Ireland team are the 14-year-old twins from County Cavan in Ireland, Lisa and Leona Maguire. They are almost certainly the first twins to be selected for Great Britain & Ireland. Both girls were members of the Ireland team for last year’s Girls Home Internationals played at Panmure Golf Club.
The Maguire girls, on the strength of their great performances in the 2008 European Young Masters championship in France when Lisa was first and Leona second, both gained automatic selection to the European team for last year’s Junior Ryder Cup match against the US at Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Leona, beat Lisa in the final of the Irish Ladies’ Close championship last year, and won the French Under-21 and the Helen Holm Scottish Stroke-Play in April this year. Lisa won the 2009 Irish Ladies’ Close Championship. Leona and Lisa made their debuts in the Ladies’ British Open Amateur Championship at Royal St David’s Golf Club, Harlech in Northwest Wales last week. Leona reached the quarter-finals before losing to Laura Collin (John O’Gaunt) but Lisa did not progress into the match play stages.
Danielle McVeigh is a third Irish player in the GB&I squad. Danielle, who feels she is a better player for spending two years at Texas A&M University, won the World Universities’ Women’s title in Thailand in 2007, and has had a good run of form this season.

She won the 2009 Welsh Women’s Open Stroke-Play Championship and finished fifth in the Helen Holm Scottish Open Stroke Play at Troon.
At Harlech last Friday, she lost to European champion Carlota Ciganda, the 2007 Ladies British Open Amateur Champion and the 2009 beaten finalist, in the third round by 3 and 2
Rhian Wyn Thomas preceded Danielle McVeigh as Welsh Women’s Open Stroke-Play champion and had a very good win at the 19th in third round of the “Ladies British Open Amateur” over Curtis Cup player Jodi Ewart who, as a University of Mexico student, is ranked No 9 on the US women’s college circuit and is the current English Women’s Stroke-play champion.
Rhian has had a meteoric rise to Welsh and now GB&I international status when one considers that tennis was her sport. Even in her teens, she had never swung a golf club until, attending a Welsh Show, she heard Welsh national coach David Llewellyn inviting anyone who had never played the game to come forward and have a go at hitting a golf ball.
Rhian, obviously with a great eye for ball games, turned out to have such a natural swing and ability that Llewellyn found it hard to believe she was a complete golfing novice. The rest, as they say, is history.
There are three Scots in the squad – Sally Watson, Kylie Walker and Pamela Pretswell.
Teenage Curtis Cup player Sally Watson, beaten in the final of the 2006 British Girls’ Championship the year after she had beaten Carly Booth in the final of the Scottish Girls’ Championship, will enrol at Tiger Woods’ alma mater, Stanford University, in California in the autumn.
She has spent recent years as a student at the David Leaderbetter Academy in Florida. Sally has made a complete recovery from the knee operation she had a few days after the 2008 Curtis Cup match and which kept her out of action for most of the remainder of the season.
Big-hitting Kylie Walker beat an international field and followed in the footsteps of Annika Sorenstam to win the St Rule Trophy at St Andrews this year. Actually, Annika won the tournament only once, and Kylie has had back-to-back “St Rule” wins, a feat last achieved by Solheim Cup player Catriona (Lambert) Matthew in 1993-94 and by only one other player, also a Scot - Christine Middleton (Cruden Bay) in 1988-89.
Pamela Pretswell, a Glasgow University student, was Scottish Universities champion in 2008 but her biggest win last year came on a holiday trip when she beat a quality continental field to win the Swiss Women’s Open Amateur Championship.
This year, despite important university exams, Pamela was able to win the West of Scotland title but after winning a sackful of trophies in the qualifying rounds of the Scottish Ladies’ (Close) Championship at Southerness, the after-effects of a pre-tournament illness drained her and she lost early in the match-play stages.
In last week’s British Championship, Pamela was the last Scot to be knocked out, but only at the 20th in the third round by Laura Collin who went on to remove Leona Maguire in the quarter-finals.
Laura Collin, as yet uncapped by England, has been given an encouraging pat on the back and rewarded by the GB&I selectors for her fantastic performance and run through to the semi-finals with a place among the named reserves.
Rachel Jennings is the second English player in the GB&I team. A player of great talent and potential, she performs well on the big stage, having won the English Girls' Championship as well as the French Under-21 Championship and Rachel helped England achieve seventh place at the World Amateur Team Championship for the Espirito Santo Trophy. This season Rachel was a close runner-up to Danielle McVeigh in the Welsh Open Stroke-Play Championship, was third qualifier in the English Championship and reached the last 32 in the Ladies' British Amateur Championship. She lost by one hole to Hannah Barwood, last year’s English Champion, in one of the best second-round ties at Harlech last week.
There was a time when Great Britain & Ireland dominated the Vagliano Trophy matches but since 1995, the Continent of Europe team has won five of the seven encounters and Mary McKenna will be hoping her team will bring the trophy back from Germany.
Mary said “I am really pleased with my team. A great mix with all four of the Home Countries represented. Although a very young team, there is a remarkable amount of experience as most have successfully competed in events around the world.”
For the forthcoming team preparation session, the entire GB&I team has been invited to play in the AIB Ladies’ Irish Open, a Ladies’ European Tour event which will be played at Portmarnock Hotel & Golf Links from June 26 to 28.

For further information please contact
Susan Simpson
Head of Golf Operations
Ladies’ Golf Union
susan.simpson@lgu.org