GB AND I TEAMS NAMED FOR VAGLIANO AND JUNIOR VAGLIANO TROPHY MATCHES

By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Colin@scottishgolfview.com 
Not easy picking a Great Britain and Ireland team of nine strong enough to break the Continent of Europe's six-year grip on the Vagliano Trophy.
It would have been great if the GB and I team that beat the Americans to win back the Curtis Cup at Nairn last June could have stayed amateur another 12 months to see if it really is harder to beat the Continentals than it is to beat the United States these days.
But the modern golfing girl hardly stays around the amateur ranks long enough to play in two consecutive teams. More's the pity. 
The Great Britain and Ireland selectors, meeting at Ratho Park Golf Club, Edinburgh yesterday went for a blend of experience and youth in their team for this year's Vagliano Trophy match at Chantilly Golf Club, near Paris on Friday and Saturday, June 28 and 29.
The average age is only 19 years even though it includes two players in their 20s (Stephanie Meadow 21 and Becky Harries 25. Disregard them and  the average age of the other seven comes down to just over 18 years. 
Although this is the first LGU team selection where the Women's World Amateur Rankings were acknowledged as a guiding factor, only two players, in fact, No 6 Stephanie Meadow and No 7 Georgia Hall, gained automatic selection.
I am sure the day will come when World Rankings will make selectors in general superfluous. A bit like the Ryder Cup, the rankings will provide automatic places with the team captain left with maybe one, two or three wild-card choices which would be based on current form rather than the year-long picture provided by the WAGR. That day will come but it's not here yet.
The LGU wanted its own, fairly new Order of Merit to be taken into consideration but the four home unions would not countenance that, not this year anyway.
The GB and I team will be captained by the successful Curtis Cup team leader at The Nairn Golf Club last June, Tegwen Matthews who played in four Vagliano Trophy matches in the 1970s and was never on the losing side.
The GB and I team is:

AMY BOULDEN (Conwy GC, WALES) Age 19. 
World Ranking 155.
GABRIELLA COWLEY (Brocket Hall, ENGLAND) Age 17.
World Ranking 136
HAYLEY DAVIS (Ferndown, ENGLAND) Age 19.
World Ranking 69
GEORGIA HALL (Remedy Oak, ENGLAND) Age 17.
World Ranking 7
BECKY HARRIES (Haverfordwest, WALES) Age 25.
World Ranking 199
BRONTE LAW (Bramhall, ENGLAND) Age 18.
World Ranking 31
STEPHANIE MEADOW (Royal Portrush, NORTHERN IRELAND) Age 21.
World Ranking 6
ALEXANDRA PETERS (Notts Ladies, ENGLAND) Age 19
World Ranking 77.
AMBER RATCLIFFE (Royal Cromer, ENGLAND) Age 18.
World Ranking 217
  Only three of last year's eight-strong Curtis Cup-winning team were available for selection - Amy Boulden, Bronte Law and Stephanie Meadow. Leona Maguire did not make herself available while
Pamela Pretswell, Kelly Tidy, Holly Clyburn and Charlie Hull have all since turned professional.
New Ladies British Open amateur champion Georgia Hall from Dorset, the first reigning British girls champion to hold both these titles, played for GB and I in the inaugural Junior Vagliano Trophy match (for Under-16s) at Royal Porthcawl in June 2011.
Inside the space of 18 months, Georgia has been a shooting star,  improving from somewhere in the 600s to No 7 in the Women's World Amateur Rankings and won two British titles.
Georgia, although still only 17, is going to be a key player if GB and I are going to win at Chantilly.
Also in that 2011 Junior Vagliano Trophy team were Bronte Law and Amber Ratcliffe who was joint fourth in this year's English women's amateur championship and was the No 5 qualifier in the "British" at Machynys GC, South Wales last week. 
Bronte Law was unable to play last week because of school exams.
For Gabriella Cowley, Hayley Davis, Becky Harries and Alexandra Peters it will be a first appearance in a Great Britain and Ireland team.
Hayley, who lost a titanic struggle to Georgia Hall at the 20th in the round of the last 32 at Machynys last week,  is one of two team members who are students at American universities. She is at Baylor University, Texas while Stephanie Meadow, winner of the British women's open amateur title at Carnoustie last year, is a star member of the Alabama University Crimson Tide team.
Gabriella Cowley, third in the English women's amateur championship (played as stroke-play from this year), was the No 9 qualifier for the match-play stages of the British women's open amateur championship at Machynys GC last week. She reached the last 16.
Alexandra Peters, last year's English women's amateur stroke-play champion and runner-up in the English women's championship this year, was the 13th qualifier last week and reached the last 16.
Becky Harries earns a GB and I debut at the age of 25 on the back of a very good season which has seen her win the Welsh (closed) ladies' championship. No GB and I reserves have been announced for the match.
So who were the players not selected who will be feeling a bit miffed today? I would suggest Wales' Chloe Williams, (61st in the WAGR), Sarah-Jane Boyd, winner of the British stroke-play title last year and the English championship two or three weeks ago, former British champion Lauren Taylor (91st in the WAGR and a winner in her first year at Baylor University, Texas), and Meghan MacLaren, winner of the Irish women's open amateur stroke-play title after three wins as a freshman on the US college circuit.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that Chloe Williams forgot to enter last week's British championship. If she did, she has paid a high price for being absent-minded.

This will be the 28th Vagliano Trophy match, played every two years since its inception as a GB and I versus Continent of Europe contest. The trophy was originally donated by Monsieur A A Vagliano for annual competition between France and Great Britain.
The two-day match will feature four foursomes and eight singles each day.
The Continent have won the last three matches - 15-9 at Fairmont St Andrews (2007), 13-11 at Hamburg (2009) and 15 1/2-8 1/2 at Royal Porthcawl (2011) - but GB and I lead 15-11 overall with only one match drawn (captain Tegwen Matthews played in that 1979 tie; GB and I, as holders of the trophy, retained it that year).
Chantilly, 24 miles north of Paris, is as famous for its racecourse and racehorse training community as it is for golf but the course is recognised as one of the best in France.
 It was designed by Tom Simpson from Woking who established his reputation as a golf course architect with his work at Ballybunion, Cruden Bay, Royal Portrush, Carnoustie, Muirfield, Morfontaine and Chiberta, to name but a few.
Simpson once summed up his golf-design philosphy thus: "Golf should combine a pleasant form of physical vigour with the problems of the chessboard." He liked his courses to demand "mental agility." Another of his quotes was: "The centre of the fairway should never be the ideal place to drive your ball."
The Junior Vagliano Trophy match was introduced two years ago at Royal Porthcawl where the Continent of Europe triumphed 13-5.
The GB and I team for Under-16s contest at Chantilly will be captained by Elaine Farquharson-Black, an Aberdeen-based solicitor who played in the Vagliano Trophy matches of 1989 and 1991 and the Curtis Cup matches of 1990 and 1992.
The team is:

SAMANTHA FULLER (Roehampton, ENGLAND) Age 14.
ALICE HEWSON (Berkhamsted, ENGLAND) Age 15.
SOPHIE LAMB (Clitheroe, ENGLAND) Age 15.
FIONA LIDDELL (Based in Germany, nationality SCOTLAND) Age 15.
SOPHIE MADDEN (West Essex, ENGLAND) Age 16.
OLIVIA MEHAFFEY (Royal Co Down Ladies, NORTHERN IRELAND) Age 15.

RESERVES:
1 ELOISE HEALEY (West Lancs, ENGLAND)
2 EMMA ALLEN (Meon Valley, ENGLAND)
3 BETHAN MORRIS (Tenby, WALES)
4 HAZEL McGARVEY (Troon Ladies, SCOTLAND).
5 VICTORIA MALLETT (Sutton Coldfield, ENGLAND).