Yorkshire ladies march on in English Women's County Championship finals

Captain Fran Dickson’s side followed their 9-0 win over Hampshire with an 8.5-0.5pt defeat of Nottinghamshire.

The half point conceded came in the top match in the morning foursomes when Notts’ Rachel Boulton and Libby Kilbride shared the honours by winning the last hole against Selby’s Megan Garland and Nicola Slater (Woodsome Hall).

Kilbride, formerly of Renishaw Park, holed a daunting putt across a sloping green for a decisive par.

Yorkshire coach Steve Robinson (Sandburn Hall), England Golf’s coach of the year for 2016, fine-tuned his team’s putting with a lunchtime session and they returned to the course to dominate the singles.

Rotherham’s Olivia Winning and Huddersfield’s Charlotte Heath both produced comfortable 4&3 wins.

Heath’s Huddersfield club-mate Megan Lockett – an 8&6 winner on day one when she finished four under par – produced a spurt of four birdies in the space of five holes, but her opponent Lauren Spray had three in five herself and only succumbed on the final green.

Garland got ahead early on by following a birdie on the seventh with an eagle on the eighth, where she holed a putt the full length of the green. She was dormie three up, but Boulton took her to the last before Yorkshire’s champion earned the full point.

Woodsome Hall’s Melissa Wood won 3&1 while Lightcliffe’s Hannah Holden fought back from one down after 15 to win on the 18th.

Dickson said: “It was tight this morning and they had to improve their chipping and putting. But they had lots of practice at lunchtime and they fought very hard this afternoon when they needed to.”

Suffolk, trounced 8-1 on Monday by defending champions Gloucestershire, pulled off a 5-4 win over Buckinghamshire while Gloucestershire pulled out the stops in the singles to beat Hampshire 5.5-3.5.

On Wednesday, Yorkshire face Suffolk, Nottinghamshire take on Hampshire and Gloucestershire look to make it three out of three against Buckinghamshire.