Lindrick's Slater quick to double up with English title triumph

It gave the Yorkshire county player a 3&2 victory in the event’s climax at Kirby Muxloe – and the acquisition of a second trophy in the space of five playing days.

England Golf girls’ squad member Slater had shot 65 69 for a five-shot victory in the Bridget Jackson Bowl at Handsworth, near Birmingham, before heading to Leicestershire for the English match play championship.

“I went into it expecting to do well, and I like match play,” said the 18-year-old. “I enjoy both match play and stroke play, but I feel you can be a bit more competitive in match play.”

This said, she admits to being something of slow starter in match play, as was in evidence in her semi-final when she trailed Emily Brennan (Trentham) by two holes at the turn before winning – but not in the final when she was four up at the halfway stage and six up with six to play.

Trailing early on appeals, it seems, to her sense of the dramatic. “Generally in match play I tend to be down at the start,” she reflected. “I don’t know why it is although I quite like the comeback idea. I’m quite good at battling from behind.”

Fuller showed a similar penchant for drama, first by denying Slater a 7&6 win with a sand save at 12 and then by winning the following three holes.

But Slater’s birdie two at the par-3 16th ended the fightback and brought her ninth round in six days – two of them in practice – to a close.

As she enjoyed a day’s rest from golf yesterday she revealed that she did not feel as tired as she had after helping Yorkshire ladies – the Green Army – win a third consecutive Northern Counties Match Week title at Huddersfield last month.

“I don’t feel particularly tired, to be fair,” she commented.

“I felt more tired after Counties Week than I am now. Kirby Muxloe is quite an easy walking course, it’s not like Huddersfield.”

North Region ladies’ champion Slater had qualified equal second in the 36-hole stroke play stage of the English championship.

She carded 74 72 for a four-over-par aggregate, the highlight of which was an eagle three in her second round at the 456-yard par-5 sixth – which she had birdied on day one.

She then defeated France’s Lois Lau, from the Fontainebleau GC, 3&2 in the first round of the match play stage and edged Jessica Bailey, playing on her home course, by one hole in the quarter-finals.

Her practice round on Wednesday, the eve of the championship, had left Slater with a clear game plan for tackling Kirby Muxloe.

“It’s not a course that there are two ways to play it,” she said. “There wasn’t really an attacking and a defensive way to play it.

“Even though you hit driver a lot you had to plot your way round, so what you chose on the practice round is what you were going to play the whole way through. I didn’t really change clubbing on any hole throughout the week.”

Slater will this week swerve the Pleasington Putter, a title held by her Yorkshire county team-mate Charlotte Heath, of Huddersfield, and rest up for the English women’s amateur championship, to be staged at Wilmslow July 17-19.

There she will hope to complete a double of national match play and stroke play titles in the 72-hole stroke play event.