Lockett seeks to maintain her hot streak in the Far East

The golf competition gets underway today with Huddersfield’s Lockett looking to continue the form that saw her win a remarkable eight and a half points out of nine as Yorkshire retained their Northern Counties Match Week title.

Lockett, who placed a highly-creditable 17th in the South American Championship in Argentina, is part of a three-strong British Universities & Colleges Sport women’s golf team that will compete in a four-day stroke play event, with the best two scores counting each day.

“Argentina was warm, it was about 28°, but in Taipei it’s 36° and 75 per cent humidity,” said Lockett, the White Rose women’s champion in 2015 and a sports science student at Birmingham University.

She travelled to Taipei at the weekend and has spent the past few days acclimatising. “You have got to go out and get as much exposure to it as early as you can,” she said. “You do not want to shy away from it.”

Lockett admits that she was hot under the collar in the immediate aftermath of Northern Counties Week after coming up just shy of a perfect performance over five days’ play.

“We were rain-delayed on the last day so we only ended up playing nine-hole foursomes and that is where my half came from,” she said. “At the time it was a case of, ‘don’t speak to me for five or 10 minutes’. Just to go unbeaten when there are a lot of good players in the North region was a nice feeling.”

Hallamshire’s Alex Fitzpatrick fired a 10-under-par 62 to take a three-shot lead at the 
halfway stage of the Yorkshire amateur championship at Cleveland.

The Yorkshire Boys’ champion had 10 birdies for a 131 aggregate.

Hallowes’ Sam Bairstow is second after an eight-under-par 64 while first-round leader Nick Poppleton (Wath) slipped six shots back of Fitzpatrick, adding a 70 to his opening 67.

Fulford’s Charlie Thornton is third after rounds of 70 66.

Rotherham’s Olivia Winning is six shots back of halfway leaders Isabella Holpfer (Reiters) and Annabell Fuller (Roehampton) after rounds of 75 73 in the English women’s open amateur stroke play championship at Woodhall Spa.

Woodsome Hall’s Rochelle Morris (77 72) and Selby’s Megan Garland (75 74) are one further adrift.