Nishna Patel returned as the top-Indian in the competition played in England
16-year-old Nishna Patel from Mumbai, who qualified for the match play section of the R&A Girls’ Amateur Championship at the famed Yorkshire courses of Ganton and Fulford, won her opening match in the round of 32 to progress to the Round of 16. However, she lost her match to Germany’s Helen Briem, the World No. 10, by 5&4.
Briem was also the highest ranked golfer in the field in both the boy’s and girl’s categories and would go on to lift the trophy. The 190cm tall, 18-year-old golfer has had plenty of amateur success already. She won the 2021 European Young Masters, and added three more wins in 2022 – the European Nations Cup, the Italian International Women’s Amateur, and the Women’s World Amateur Team Championship. This was her first win in 2023.
She has also played three events on the LET Access Series, and posted two runners-up finishes, suggesting that she has a bright future in the game. She also demonstrates the level that Indian golfers need to reach if they want to have success internationally.
First played in 1919, the R&A Girls’ Amateur Championship is a highly coveted junior title. Past winners include major champions and Solheim Cup players such as Anna Nordqvist, Suzann Pettersen, Azahara Munoz and Georgia Hall. More recently, Slovenia’s Pia Babnik triumphed in 2019 and has gone on to win on the Ladies’ European Tour.
The winner gains exemptions into the Women’s Amateur Championship, the US Girls’ Junior Championship, Final Qualifying for the AIG Women’s Open and by tradition, an invite to compete at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship.
Earlier Patel had shot 78-74 to tie for 33rd place alongside Mannat Brar (81-71) to comfortably make the top 64 and qualify for the match play event. Patel went on to win her first match against Charlotte Naughton on the second extra hole.
Meanwhile Brar lost her opening match 3&2 to Italy’s Paris Appendino.
Last month Patel finished fourth at the Dutch International Junior Open and had finished second in the APGC Juniors in the Philippines a few months earlier.
Credits:-
Photo – ANI