MACLAREN, BOYD AND TAYLOR HAVE POINT TO PROVE AT FULFORD

By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Colin@scottishgolfview.com
If there has been any debate about why Great Britain and Ireland were beaten so soundly - again - by the Continent of Europe in the Vagliano Trophy match at Chantilly, it must have been held behind closed doors.

There has been absolutely no reaction from the nation's coaches to GB and I captain Tegwen Matthews' assertion that "The Continentals outclassed us on and around the greens and until the national coaches address our short-game failings, we will continue to be beaten regularly in the Vagliano Trophy."

There is another point of view about why GB and I lost the Vagliano Trophy match for the fourth time in a row  with increasingly heavy margins of defeat.
That view is that the GB and I team sent to France was not the strongest that could have been selected and that the England selectors, by contrast, got it right in their choice of six for this coming week's European women's team championship at Fulford GC, Yorkshire.

Three England players' outstanding claims for Vagliano Trophy team selection were overlooked:
Meghan MacLaren, pictured above, a winner three times in her freshman year in the United States and winner of the Irish women's open stroke-play not long after her return to England for the summer holidays.
Sarah-Jane Boyd, pictured left, winner of the British women's open amateur stroke-play championship last year and this year the English women's amateur championship, which has switched to being a stroke-play event

Lauren Taylor, pictured right, youngest ever winner of the British women's open amateur championship at Royal Portrush in 2011 and a tournament winner in her freshman year at Baylor University, Texas. Still world ranked higher than four of the players selected ahead of her for the GB and I team.
MacLaren, Boyd and Taylor were chosen for the England team of six for the  European women's amateur team championship alongside Georgia Hall, Hayley Davis and Bronte Law who did play for GB and I in the disastrous Vagliano Trophy overall team performance.
If England were to win the European title - and it's possible - there will be some people I know who will be nodding their heads and saying "I told you so!"
So the pressure is on Meghan, Sarah-Jane and Lauren to prove the point this coming week. 
Personally, I have no strong feelings about the selection of the GB and I team but what I would like to see is the automatic use of the Women's World Amateur Rankings so that selectors' idiosyncrasies and blind spots can be removed from the equation. 
For the 2014 Curtis Cup match in America, it should be the top six in the WAGR with perhaps two wild card choices left to the team captain which gives her the chance to bring in players who are currently in top form.
A final word on Rankings and the Vagliano Trophy. The Continent of Europe team had nine players whose World Rankings ranged from 12 to 44 ... giving the team an individual World Ranking average of 27.
GB and I had nine players whose rankings ranged from 6 to 200 ... giving the team an individual World Ranking average of 90.
When 27 plays 90, who do YOU think is going to win out of the park?