Top seed goes the distance to reach semi-finals

Caroline Berry

Top seed Caroline Berry went the distance today to claim her place in the semi-finals of the English senior women's amateur championship.

She played 19 this morning and 18 this afternoon to claim her place in the final four, playing Aileen Greenfield of Sussex. The other match will be between Lulu Housman and Fiona Edmond.

"I've had a lot of golf," laughed Berry, pictured, (Bromborough, Cheshire), after she birdied the last to beat Devon's Jo Shorrocks in the quarter finals. Earlier, her England team-mate Cath Rawthore had birded the same hole to force their morning game down the 19th.

"I've putted well and that's been the main part of my game. I've just got to trust my swing a little bit more, occasionally I throw in the odd negative ninny shot!" said Berry, who won this title in 2010. "I knew I was going to have tough games today so I'm really pleased."

Greenfield (Pyecombe, Sussex) ended local hopes when she defeated Staffordshire's Julie Brown (Trentham) 2/1 in their quarter final. Brown, the 2014 champion, had the early advantage but the turning point for Greenfield was a birdie on 11 which got her back to all square and she pushed on from there.

It's the first time she's reached the semi-finals and it vindicates her decision to play in the championship, despite the pain from a hip which needs replacing. Her approach of gritted teeth, supported by painkillers, is working well. "I wasn't sure whether I could do it but I thought I might as well give it a go," she said.

Fiona Edmond (Ipswich, Suffolk) is making her debut in senior ranks and was an unknown quantity at the start of the championship. But she's working through the rounds in a way which reminds onlookers that she was an England international in the early 1990s.

Today she set off at a great pace in both her matches and reached the turn at four up in the morning against former champion Helen Lowe and five up in the quarter final against senior stroke play champion Jackie Foster (Bishops Stortford). In both matches she was pulled back over the inward holes but ran out the winner 2/1 and 3/2 respectively.

The final match on the course involved Lulu Housman, a past senior stroke play winner who was under par this morning when she knocked out Janet Melville, and Felicity Christine, a former British senior champion, who had to go to the 21st this morning to defeat the host club's Annette Deeley.

The quarter final was a tight affair with never more than one hole between the players. Housman (Wyke Green, Middlesex) got ahead on the short 15th but lost 17, where her second was partially blocked by a tree, and went back to all square.

On the 18th it was Christine (Woking, Surrey) who had to play out from the trees on the right of the fairway and, after her second found sand, it cost her a bogey. Housman, meanwhile, played steadily for a par and the place in the semi-final.

In the second flight for the Ann Howard Trophy – contested by over-60s – the final will be between Rosie Waller (Kendal, Cumbria) and Carol Cass (Broadstone, Dorset).

This morning Waller beat Sue Pidgeon (Wrekin, Shropshire) and followed up with a semi-final win over Sue Westall (Copt Heath, Warwickshire). Cass beat Carol Wild (Notts Ladies) in the quarter-finals and Jo Rumsey (Rochford Hundred, Essex) this afternoon

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