Yorkshire golf: Megan Lockett hopes home support can play role in Yorkshire championship

The Yorkshire county player recently dipped to the hallowed handicap level for the first time following a fine showing in the Scottish women’s open stroke play championship at Troon, where she finished 11th.

“I’ve been stuck on one or two for nearly three years, so I’m pretty happy with getting to scratch,” she said. “Hopefully I can be plus one by the end of the year, but I will take scratch at the moment as I had never been there before.”

Reaching such exalted ground will no doubt give her a lift as she looks to win back-to-back championships, at Fixby, in the club’s 125th anniversary year.

But the Welsh international does not believes she will gain too much advantage from playing on her home course because it is so familiar to most of her rivals.

“Fixby is a course that a lot of the players will know as we have quite a few events around here so it isn’t necessarily much of a home advantage,” she said.

“It is a very difficult trophy to win once, and that’s a great achievement, never mind twice.

“But I would like to think I could defend it, and in the sense that there will be members out supporting me and watching, I feel like I have a slight edge, but there are a lot of good golfers in the field.”

Hoping to prove the old maxim that two heads are better than one, she will have long-standing Huddersfield member Mary Durrans on her bag – 83 years young.

Durrans has caddied for Lockett for five years in such major events and the Yorkshire champion said: “Mary is the best caddie I could ever wish for, she is absolutely amazing.

“She was with me at the Yorkshire championship last year and she did 36 holes two days running – and she looks better than me when she comes off the course. She is just ridiculously fit.”

Durrans was designated to caddy for Lockett when the latter made her scratch team final debut for Huddersfield, aged 15.

“I didn’t know Mary at the time and being the youngest in the team I was given Mary,” recalled Lockett.

“She’s obviously older, wiser and played good golf for many, many years, so I got Mary for the scratch team finals and we stuck together ever since.

“She comes to county championships with me, she caddies in scratch team finals every year, and in Halifax-Huddersfield matches as well.”

Durrans was on Lockett’s bag last year at Ganton GC when the sports science university student defeated Malton & Norton GC’s Emma Brown – three times a Curtis Cup player – 2&1 in the final.

It was the same margin by which Brown – past winner of British, English, European, South African and Scottish championship titles – had beaten the then 16-year-old Lockett in the 2013 final.

“I took a lot of positives from the fact that I had only lost 2&1 to her at 16, so at 18 I felt I was a lot wiser and more mature as a golfer,” she reflected. “As much as she is an unbelievable golfer, I went into it feeling I could win.”

It was an attitude that, she admitted, ran counter to her form going into the match play stages from the two-round stroke play qualifying day.

“ I did not play very well in the stroke play and I did not qualify very high up,” she conceded. “I had a bit of trouble with all the bunkers around there.”

Her father Warren, head professional at Cleckheaton GC, is her coach and spoke by phone to his daughter post qualifying, during which he both concurred with her assessment of her play and – more importantly – insisted the title was still there to be won.

“Dad said, pretty much, ‘that was crap, but there is no reason you can’t win it’,” she recalled.

“I took that attitude into the match play and it paid off.”

In the first round she faced Cleckheaton’s Olivia Hamilton, a rival she has known since Hamilton was eight, and won at the first sudden-death hole.

She beat Lucy Eaton (Skipton GC) to reach the semi-finals, this time having to go to 22 holes, before defeating Hallamshire GC’s Holly Morgan on the last green to reach the final against Brown.

Lockett believes her international experience, which has included a lot of match play golf during her acquisition of 11 Welsh caps, stood her in good stead in ties that went beyond the regulation 18 holes.

She chose to play for Wales rather than her native England when the decision had to be made as a 13-year-old.

“I have played Yorkshire girls, Yorkshire second team and first team, and I’ve played every age group for Wales – Under-16s, Under-18s and full,” she said.

“Dad played for a while for Wales as a boy then moved here to Huddersfield to be assistant to Paul Carman. He met my mum, fell in love and stayed.

“I have been representing Wales since I was 14. I had to make the decision when I was about 13 and mum and dad said it was purely my decision.

“For me, dad was the golfer and dad is my idol, so I wanted to do what dad did.”

She has surpassed her idol’s achievements, laughing: “I have actually managed to beat him because I am on 11 international caps and I think dad got about three.”

The Yorkshire championship has coincided with end-of-year examinations for Lockett at Birmingham University.

She sat an exam on Tuesday before returning home to Huddersfield and will sit another next Tuesday.

This week her preparations for her title defence have been punctuated by cramming for next week’s university test.

A more welcome distraction from her golfing prep was a reunion with her boyfriend, The Oaks GC’s James Walker, after a month’s hiatus.

Walker was this week elevated to international status himself with a call to face France at Formby GC a week tomorrow.

“He has worked so hard all winter so he really deserves it,” said Lockett, who will not get a chance to watch his debut because she will be busy that weekend competing in the Welsh Ladies’ Amateur championship.