Heidi McCulkin wins Queensland Women's Amateur
IN: News | Queensland Women | Queensland Women's Amateur Championships (2003) | Wrap | by Bruce Young | 16 Jul 2003
» Heidi McCulkin Interview
19-year-old Indooroopilly golfer, Heidi McCulkin, today secured her most significant win in golf, when she took out the Women's Golf Queensland State Championship at Brookwater Golf Club near Brisbane.
Her 4&3 win over fellow Queensland Academy of Sport attendee and Royal Queensland member, Jane Evans, was not quite the walk in the park that the score would suggest, as McCulkin struggled with fatigue and the prospect of such a significant stepping stone in her career over the final nine.
The morning eighteen holes had been a topsy turvy affair with McCulkin eventually going to lunch at two up. Again however, that did not reflect the closeness of the match that had swung both ways.
By the fourth hole of the afternoon however, things were starting to look ominous for Evans as McCulkin took what appeared to be a commanding five up lead and the match perhaps headed for an early finish.
Birdies at the par three fifth and seventh holes saw the 22-year-old Evans gain some ground, but she missed a good opportunity at the ninth, when she three putted to halve the hole and see the match head for the final nine with McCulkin four up.
Evans then won the tenth and twelfth holes to make the difference just two and with two rather ordinary approach shots from McCulkin at both those holes, the momentum appeared to be swinging the way of Evans. A crucial point in the outcome of the match, came at the par five thirteenth, when Evans looked to have the advantage after McCulkin had left her third in the greenside bunker and faced a difficult bunker shot from that bunker. Evans with just 120 metres to the flag with her third, missed the green long and then missed a short putt for par, while McCulkin produced what may well have been the shot of the day from the bunker, to half a metre and the putt was conceded for her par. It turned the momentum around again and when MCulkin recovered again from a bunker at the par three 14th, Evans fate was sealed.
For McCulkin, who was perhaps overawed by the occasion when beaten in the final of the 2002 Australian Amateur by Nikki Campbell, this was a sweet victory. "I took some of what I learned from the Australian Ladies Amateur experience into this final and tried not to get too far ahead of things" said McCulkin later.
While both girls are members of other courses, they are also members of Brookwater through their role at the Queensland Academy of Sport's golf programme which is based there. McCulkin also works part time at the course and as a result, plays there often. That both girls reached the final reflects their capacity to play and handle a course that for many in the field, would have proved a handful.
McCulkin also benefited from the experience of her caddy, Australian representative, Sarah Jane Kenyon, who is still recovering from her recent car accident which kept her from representing her country in Korea last week.
