Measuring devices lead to disqualification for Irish duo at British Open

Two Irish internationals made history for the wrong reasons in the Ladies British Open Amateur Championship at Machynys Peninsula in South Wales yesterday.

Maria Dunne and Aedin Murphy became the first players to be disqualified in an LGU tournament for using distance-measuring devices in contravention of the event’s conditions and against local rules. They were only a few holes into their first qualifying rounds in separate three-ball matches when they used the devices — allowed in Ireland and in practice for the event — without thinking.

Both players were too distraught to talk about the incident but Susan Simpson of the LGU pointed out the rule was spelled out on a card issued to competitors at the time of registration.

There was some good news for Ireland in that 18-year-old Lisa Maguire, one of the Slieve Russell twins gave a sensational putting display to be well in contention on day one.

She required only 23 putts on her way to a splendid one under par 71 to sit alongside England’s Hayley Davis and Korean-born Australian Si-Hyun Oh just three strokes behind 18-year-old Dane Caroline Nistrup from Copenhagen who tops the leaderboard going into the second round. Maguire had birdies on 1,2 and 8 on her way to the turn in 35 and further birdies on 11,14 and 17.

Lisa’s twin sister Leona returned a highly-creditable level par 72.

Stephanie Meadow opened the defence of the title she won at Carnoustie last year with a four over par 76 after closing with two bogeys while Lisburn’s Paula Grant recorded 77 and Chloe Ryan slumped to a triple bogey eight on the 13th on her way to a 79 — she will certainly have to improve today if she is going to progress.

Northamptonshire’s Meghan Mac-Laren, winner of the recent Irish Open stroke-play championship, carded a fine 70.

The competitors play another round today and then the leading 64 go forward to the knockout phase, ending in the final on Saturday afternoon.