CONWY, NORTH WALES | It was a delightful tale to capture the innocence of Louise Duncan, the Women’s Amateur champion who was one of three Great Britain & Ireland Curtis Cup players to have made the cut in the AIG Women’s Open at Carnoustie, the others being Annabell Fuller and Lauren Walsh. South Korea’s Eun-Hee Ji was in Duncan’s group on the first two days at Carnoustie and Duncan, thinking Ji, with her Scottish caddie, was probably a member of a Scottish club, wanted to know if that was in fact the case.
Like so many South Koreans, Ji could not have been more polite. She smiled at the 21-year-old student before explaining she was actually an LPGA Tour member.
Dean Robertson, Duncan’s coach at Stirling University and the man who was carrying her bag as she made her way to a top-10 finish among the world’s best, winced not a little. Ji, he told his charge, was a former US Women’s Open champion who had won four other LPGA events. Duncan was aghast.
Shy though she had been at the start of this past fortnight, Duncan was walking taller by the day. Former European Tour winner Robertson is convinced that she, Fuller and Walsh would have lifted the spirits of the rest of GB&I side when they joined their five teammates last Monday at Conwy Golf Club.
And that is how it came across, with the Welsh sunshine adding to the feel-good factor and cancelling out any concerns home players might have had about the 17-3 thumping a very different GB&I side suffered at Quaker Ridge in 2018.
On to the Thursday morning foursomes when things did not exactly go to plan for Duncan and fellow Scot Heather Darling. At the top of the line-up, these classy Scots went 2 down after five holes against Rose Zhang and Rachel Heck, the top two players in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, before staging a heroic fight back to be 1 up with three to play. It was nail-biting stuff in which the end result was a halve when the US pair birdied the last hole.
With GB&I finishing the morning with a 2½-½ lead, the only flicker of negativity interrupting the general excitement concerned the uniforms. With colder conditions than previous days, there was all the confusion you would have expected when three players in the first foursomes – Heck, Duncan and Darling – all wore navy and white. It was not always the case, in that the US players donned pinkish-red jackets from time to time but, when you think of how many colours there are in the rainbow, it is surely possible for the two teams to agree well ahead of the all-important week on contrasting themes. Especially in the case of an event which needs to make the most of TV exposure.
Going back to Carnoustie, Duncan’s confidence booster of a fortnight had started like this: Catriona Matthew, a former Stirling University scholar herself, asked Duncan to join Sophia Popov, Leona Maguire and herself for a practice round. Duncan, not used to the way the professionals hit practice putts from here, there and everywhere when they have the time, was nervous beyond belief and kept worrying lest she was getting in their way. The three sensed as much and did everything they could to make her feel comfortable.
Georgia Hall, with whom Duncan was paired on the Saturday, was no different and when, after they had returned matching scores and Duncan went to knock knuckles, Hall ignored the gesture to give her a heartfelt hug, along with a host of compliments about her game.
Ahead of that round, Robertson and Duncan had lunch with Matthew – a long lunch before the player’s late starting time.
Matthew, the 2009 Women’s Open champion, talked about her experiences in Solheim and Curtis Cup matches and told her companions precisely how she used to prepare for such occasions.
Robertson said it had been as much of a learning experience for him as it was for Duncan, with nothing impressing him more than how calm Matthew was when she still had ahead of her the unenviable task of having to speak to those Solheim Cup “possibles†to whom she had not given a wild card. He had been taken, too, with how much of Matthew he could see in Duncan.
“In the past, Louise has been a bit too self-deprecating for her own good,†Robertson said. “She was almost embarrassed to admit that she was a good player. By Sunday night, though, she was talking delightedly of her efforts in chasing the world’s best down the stretch without seizing up in the process. It was everything I wanted to hear."
Lewine Mair
