Remembering Angela Uzielli

The staging next week (September 14 to 16) of the British senior women's open amateur championship at Caldy Golf Club on the Wirral brings back memories of Angela Uzielli who won that title SIX times in the 1990s: 1990-91-92-95-98-99. She died suddenly, aged 59, only a few weeks after her 1999 success.

Liz Kahn wrote an excellent obituary for Angela. She has given us permission to reproduce it.
    
Remembering Angela Uzielli, six-time winner of the British senior title - and so much more!

ANGELA UZIELLI was one of life's natural charmers. Her death was a shock to the amateur golfing world, whose very constituents she epitomised. She was an amateur in the best traditions of the game, with an irrepressible sense of fun.

Uzielli did not have a conventionally pretty swing, but she was a great competitor, whose love of the game always bubbled to the surface. Her competitive streak is reflected in her record, which includes becoming British champion in 1977, playing in the 1978 Curtis Cup, taking the English title in 1990 (at the age of 50) and the British Senior Championship six times from 1990, the last in September, 1999 at Malone, where she won by a whopping six shots. She was an England captain and the 1990 Woman Golfer of the Year.

One of four children, she was born in 1940 to a Norfolk golfing family and played at Hunstanton, where her parents John and Peggy Carrick were members from the 1930s. Her father, a farmer, was a good golfer, while her mother was an impressive Norfolk champion 11 times between 1938 and 1977.

From 1965, Uzielli, with Peggy Carrick, a scratch golfer well into her 70s, won the Mothers and Daughters Open Foursomes 21 times.  Uzielli entered the tournament with her own daughter, Caroline, and they won together in 1996. Angela was a born winner.

Before her marriage, Uzielli worked in the former Rhodesia as ground staff for an airline. Her husband John was in marine insurance and, living in London, she played little golf as she had two young children. It was a family steeped in the sport. Uzielli's husband had been captain of golf at Oxford University and is a member of the Royal and Ancient of which he was captain at one stage; their son became captain of golf at Cambridge University and a golfing blue.

When the family moved to Ascot and in 1973 joined the Berkshire Golf Club, Uzielli became a stalwart member as well as a family woman, dashing from competing in and winning the Avia Foursomes to baking cakes for her daughter's birthday, which took place in the same week.
She had a slightly rebellious streak. She was a strong personality who could give a caustic opinion without worrying who was listening. But above all she was fun and totally unaffected, whether making up a four with the Duke of York at The Berkshire or playing with a high handicapper. Berkshire ladies' champion 16 times from the mid-70s to the mid-90s, she was captain, honorary secretary and a stalwart committee member at her club.

Not many people remember that it was Angela who persuaded the LGU that the number of qualifiers for the match-play stages of the British women's open amateur championship should go up from 32 to 64.

The image that remains nearly 16 years after her passing is of an effervescent personality, full of bonhomie. Fifty yards away from her, you would smile in anticipation of a chat. An active woman and a communicator, she might wave to someone across the fairway or chase round her home with the Hoover before she went out to her beloved golf.

Angela Mary Carrick, golfer: born Swanton Morley, Norfolk 1 February 1940; married 1967 John Uzielli (one son, one daughter); died Ascot, Berkshire 4 November 1999.