HOME INTERNATIONALS BACK TO SEPTEMBER NEXT YEAR
THIS year will be the last in which the women's home internationals
will be played in August with the British women's open amateur
stroke-play championship in September.
Royal Portrush (stroke play) and Cruden Bay (internationals), the host
clubs for the 2003 events, have agreed to a request from the Ladies
Golf Union that the tournaments return to their traditional dates,
i.e. the stroke-play championship in August with the internationals in
September.
The experimental switching of the two tournaments' slots in the
golfing calendar was begun last year at Carlow and Kilmarnock Barassie
in a bid to make the players who are on golf scholarships at American
colleges available for selection for the internationals.
In fact, it did not make one whit of a difference. Scotland, who have
at any given time about a dozen girls on college campuses in the
United States, still could not call on players such as Vikki Laing
(University of California Berkeley) who reported back for her new term
during the new August dates for the internationals.
To make matters worse, the first British women's open stroke-play
championship played in September (2001) attracted practically no
Continental players because of a clash with the Mediterranean Games
which feature golf on its programme.
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