Truro golfer Sarah-Jane Boyd played her way into the quarter finals of the English women's open mid-amateur championship at Bath today despite a dramatic dash to the course.
The reigning English ladie' champion made her morning tee-time with just two minutes to spare, before pounding a drive straight down the middle of the first fairway and going on to win her morning match 2up and her afternoon game by 2/1.
"Who needs a warm-up?" she joked afterwards. "Very over-rated!"
Sarah-Jane's problems began as she drove to the course: "We left lots of time but we got caught up in the traffic congestion, then our satnav packed up in the middle of Bath – and we hadn't a clue where we were going.
"So we stopped and rang for a taxi which took 15 minutes to arrive and then the driver said it was 10 minutes to the course – and I was due off in 14 minutes. It was just a nightmare."
She dashed straight from the car park to the tee, eventually making it with two minutes to spare to play Nottinghamshire's Emily Mae Hall. Despite the dash, Sarah-Jane was below par during the match and went on this afternoon to beat Kent's Jessica Gregory in another low-scoring game.
"I've had two really good matches which is good, because it gets you match fit," she remarked. Now she plays Bethany Round who defeated Yorkshire's Hannah Holden on the 19th.
Bethany, 19, a sports science student at Birmingham University, was one-down playing the 18th but managed to square the match and then take the honours with a good up and down for par on the 19th.
Top seed Sammie Giles of St Mellion came through two close matches to take her place in the quarter finals.
The 19-year-old beat Hampshire's Aimee Paterson 2 up in the afternoon, having won her first round match against Oxfordshire's Sophie Stone on the 18th. "Both matches were quality and both were as hard as each other," said Sammie.
Her opponent tomorrow is Alex Saunders, from nearby Bristol & Clifton, who defeated Lancashire's Emma Clegg 2/1 in the second round. The Gloucestershire county player knows this course well but the extended length and the use of men's white tees is giving her a new perspective on it: "I really like the set up, it's very interesting," she said.
