HANNAH McCOOK RANKED No 410 IN WORLD BUT IGNORED BY SLGA SELECTORS FOR NATIONAL SQUAD TRAINING

HANNAH McCOOK ... British universities' women's champion

   Image by Cal Carson Golf Agency

 

By COLIN FARQUHARSON

Colin@scottishgolfview.com

I remember thinking when World Amateur Golf Rankings came on the scene that selection committees would become a thing of the past.

International teams would surely be compiled straight off the world rankings which are based on tournament results.

It simply has not happened that way at all.

In fact, I would question if selection committees in general pay any attention to the R and A's World Amateur Golf Rankings.

Take the recent announcement by the SLGA of a "National Squad" for 2012-13 training.

One glaring omission is Stirling University student Hannah McCook, 19, from Nethy Bridge and a member of Grantown on Spey Golf Club.

Yet she is world-ranked No 410, well ahead of those who have been named in the SLGA Squad with the exception of Eilidh Briggs, ranked No 261.

Hannah had a very good 2012 season, especially after having wrist surgey last November and not being able to play competitive golf for four months.      

It wasn't until early February that she began hitting full shots again but by the end of May she had won the British universities championship and the Northern Counties women's championship, finished runner-up in the Scottish universities championship and also the R and A Bursars tournament, as well as coming fourth in the Helen Holm Scottish women's stroke-play and seventh in the Irish women's open amateur stroke-play.

McCook rounded off her season by finishing third at the SLGA Champion of Champions' tournament and winning at Fairmont St Andrews in the British Universities' Student Tour.
Soon she will be off to Florida and the Orange Blossom Tour in January as a member of the Stirling University party.
If Hannah needed any motivation to play well in Florida, then the SLGA selection committee have provided it.  
*"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!"

 E-mail from Caroline McIntosh

I know the SLGA have the Order of Merits.

I just think it would make things simpler for everyone if they used them. What is the point in girls/ladies trying their hardest to get selected when they, the selectors, do not take what they are doing into consideration. Hannah McCook is a prime example. 

No wonder so many girls/ladies end up giving up competitive golf!

 Caroline


*While many attribute the quote to William Shakespeare, it actually comes from a play called the "The Mourning Bride" (1697) by William Congreve. The complete quote is "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."