Essex County junior Maybel Brooks birdied the final hole to clinch the English Girls’ Under 14 Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship, finishing one shot clear of Italy’s Elena Sartori and Spain’s Sofia Lara Gamilla Karpa at The Gog Magog Golf Club.
The England Golf East Region Squad player closed with a three-under par 70 to secure the title with an 8-under total, having posted rounds of 70 and 71 over the opening two days. Sartori and Karpa finished tied for second.
In lifting the trophy, Brooks – who is a members at Chelmsford Golf Club and won the Essex Women’s County Championship earlier this year – joins an impressive list of former champions including Charley Hull (2008), Georgia Hall (2009) and Alice Hewson (2010).
Sartori had led from the opening round and carried a one-shot advantage into the final day ahead of Karpa, while Brooks and France’s Romy Tertian started the final round three shots off the pace.
The Italian remained in control throughout much of the front-nine and, after briefly being joined at the summit by Karpa, stretched her lead to three shots through 10 holes at 10-under-par.
Brooks, meanwhile, was quietly mounting a charge of her own, reaching 2-under for the day without dropping a shot. Karpa made an early move with three birdies in her opening six holes, but a costly stretch around the turn halted her momentum.
A double bogey at the par-3 8th coupled with bogeys either side, saw her slip back before she recovered with another birdie to return to 7-under through 12 holes. At that stage, Sartori still held a three-shot advantage over both Brooks and Karpa.
DRAMATIC SWING
However, the championship swung dramatically on the closing stretch when Sartori recorded back-to-back bogeys at the 15th and 16th, dropping back to 8-under with two holes to play. With just one shot separating the leading trio, Brooks set the clubhouse target in style.
After superbly chipping close from just off the 18th green, she converted the birdie putt to reach 8-under and apply maximum pressure to the final group behind her. Sartori then found trouble with her approach into the last, missing the green to the right.
Unable to get up and down, the Italian carded a bogey, while Karpa could only make par, leaving Brooks to celebrate a dramatic victory.
Speaking after receiving the trophy, she said: “It feels amazing to have won this tournament – there’s so many good competitors here. I decided not to look at the scoreboard on the 17th, which was probably a good idea. Then, I was going down 18, thinking I needed to try and birdie it to see if I’d have a chance. I didn’t really think too much about it until everyone started coming up to me saying ‘Mabel you have a chance!’
She added: “It’s very cool to have my name alongside the likes of Charley Hull, Georgia Hall and Alice Hewson.”
For all the scores and the final standings, click here.
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