All to play for as Ireland ladies surrender advantage

IRELAND’S hopes of winning the Ladies’ Amateur Home International golf championship for the first time for 16 years were dealt a blow yesterday when they yielded a foursomes advantage to go down 5-4 to Wales.

They still go into the third, and final, day in this round robin series with a chance of securing the crown - in fact all the four countries are in contention each having gained one point.

It will depend on today’s matches which bring together Wales, whose only success came at Dornoch in 1999, and England, winners nine times in the last ten years; and Scotland looking for their first triumph since 1991 and Ireland. It could come down to a countback of individual points gained and, at the moment, England top the table with 9½ games won. Wales and Ireland are level on 9 and Scotland have 8½ - it could not be tighter. Ireland got off to a flying start against Wales winning two of the three foursomes but it always looked as though the top singles match would be the decisive one with Curtis Cup player Alison Coffey taking on former British strokeplay champion Becky Brewerton who feels she has a point to prove after being left out of the cup side which lost to the USA.