Competitors in the Grand Final of the Golf 4 Women Salver at Desert Springs.

Northern Ireland ladies win Golf 4

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Women Salver at Desert Springs

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NEWS RELEASE
Lady golfers Heather Patterson and Louise Gaw – both members of Edenmore Golf Club in Northern Ireland – have won this year’s grand final of the Golf 4 Women Salver at Desert Springs, Europe’s only international award-winning luxury family resort and championship desert golf course in the Almanzora region of Almeria in south-east Spain.
This is the first year that players from Northern Ireland have competed in the annual Salver competition, its ninth year.
Runners-up were last year’s champions Linda Bowden and Viv Monument from Bowood Golf and Country Club in Wiltshire.
The tournament was played in American Greensome format. The winning score was 39 points and the runners-up scored 37.
The event was run in conjunction with the Douglas Bader Foundation. The charity, set up in memory of the limbless wartime flying ace to assist disabled people, celebrated its silver jubilee last year.
More than £20,000 was raised for the charity by this year’s Golf 4 Women Salver which was a year-long event involving more than 3,000 women golfers from over 300 clubs throughout the UK.
Each club held a qualifying tournament on its own golf course, producing two winners who qualified for one of 11 regional finals. The winners of each regional final, together with last year’s champions, qualified for the grand final at Desert Springs.
The 24 players who enjoyed an all-expenses-paid four-night stay at Desert Springs played two practice rounds prior to the final round.
The Desert Springs Golf Academy director and ladies golf co-ordinator Christine Langford, who hosted the final and regional events, has successfully pioneered Golf 4 Women in a bid to encourage more women to take up the sport.
Christine, a former Ladies European Tour player and leading golf coach, organises golfing holidays specifically tailored to the interests of lady players at Desert Springs. Also available are three-day tuition packages, with lessons by a professional in the Desert Springs Golf Academy, as well as three- and seven-day breaks. Some include health and beauty treatments in the Day Spa at Desert Springs.

+Pictured above right is Desert Springs Golf Academy director and ladies golf co-ordinator Christine Langford (centre) with the winners of the Golf 4 Women Salver, Heather Patterson (left) and Louise Gaw from Edenmore Golf Club, which is four miles east of Lurgan in Northern Ireland, according to the "Golfer's Handbook."