East Region Girls Champion 2023 – Darcie West of Sandy Lodge

August 18, 2023

East Region Girls Champion 2023 – Darcie West of Sandy Lodge

UNDER 15 GROSS WINNER ALECIA IBEKWEM OF SANDY LODGE ON THE LEFT, WITH OVERALL GROSS WINNER DARCIE WEST ON THE RIGHT, WITH KNEBWORTH CLUB CAPTAIN ANDY BURGESS IN THE CENTRE

We were delighted to host the East Region Girls Championship yesterday (Thu 17 Aug) at our ‘home’ club of Knebworth, the site of the Hertfordshire Golf offices. 27 junior female golfers from all over the East Region took part playing 36 holes medal strokeplay to determine the Regional Champion.

The weather on the day was warm and dry but with some decent breeze to keep the players thinking over their shots.

The course, not long after their greens maintenance week, was in excellent condition, with the greens very true and fair and the course extremely well defined after all the recent wet weather encouraging growth across the course.

After Round 1 Connie Packer of Bishop’s Stortford, in her last year as a junior golfer, returned an excellent gross 70 (-3) to lead the main gross competition by 4 shots from a crop of players on 74 (+1). Excellent nett scores were returned by the Essex pair of Jessica Pugh of Benton Hall in Essex and Lily Hawes of Chelmsford in Essex with nett 65 (-8) and 67 (-6) respectively.

The Knebworth golf course isn’t the easiest of walks due to its undulations, particularly over 36 holes, and as such many of the competitors understandably started to flag somewhat on the back 9 of the afternoon round.

Connie would rue two late double bogeys on holes 14 and 16 and ended on a cumulative score of 147, + 1 for the day, with a pm 77 to add to her am 70. Connie would end up 1 shot shy of the winning score of 146, level par for the day, returned by former Knebworth member Darcie West, now of Sandy Lodge, with a pm 72 to add to her morning 74.

It became a double Sandy Lodge and Herts victory when Alecia Ibekwem won the Under 15’s gross event with 153 +7 for the day, rounds of 75 & 78, to take the title by 1 from Zoe McLean Tattan of Romford in Essex on 154 +8.

In the overall nett competition halfway leader Jessica Pugh would narrowly hang on to win the event with an excellent score of 138 nett for the day, -8, a pm nett 73 to add to her morning stellar score of 65. This would pip fellow Essex golfer Lily Hawes who finished second a shot behind on 139 nett -7 for the day.

The County Team prize, utilising all scores across the day from the three lowest handicap players per county, was won by the Hertfordshire team of the overall winner Darcie combining with runner up Connie and home member Tala Clarke for an impressive cumulative score of 445 +7 for the day. Essex would be runners up.

Our thanks to Knebworth for hosting the day in such excellent fashion and we look forward to hosting another East Region event in the near future.