Championships - Girls' British Open Amateur Championship 2008
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09.08.2008
Ivan Lendl's daughter Daniela in Monifieth field for British Girls
Former world tennis No 1 Ivan Lendl is in Scotland with his youngest daughter Daniela.She is in the field for the British Girls’ Open Amateur Championship which starts over the Monifieth links, just north of Dundee on Monday.
Connecticutt-based Lendl has five daughters in all. Three of them – Marika 18, Isabelle 17 and Daniela 15 - play golf to a high standard and are resident students at the David Leadbetter Golf Academy at Bradenton, Florida.
Daniela has a handicap of +2.1 and recently was seventh leading qualifier for the match-play stages of the United States girls’ championship with rounds of two-under-par 69 (her lowest ever score) and 73 for a 36-hole total of level par 142.
But Daniela, for some reason, suddenly lost form in the first round of match-play and gave a seven-over-par performance in suffering an unexpected 3 and 2 defeat by an Amy Anderson who went out in the next round.
“I never get mad about my daughters’ golf scores. I only get mad if there’s a poor effort,” says Ivan who is a quite good golfer himself.
“Dad only gets mad when he thinks you aren’t trying or if you do something really stupid, like, instead of laying up, you try to hit a shot 240 yards over water after your opponent has just hit her ball into the water,” says Isabelle.
Daniela Lendl has the nickname “Crash” which suggests she has an aggressive nature.
One of the favourites for the British title is Carly Booth, the 16-year-old Curtis Cup player from Comrie, Perthshire. Carly’s handicap of +3.1 makes, her on paper, the best in the field of a capacity field of over 200, mainly from Europe.
So many under-18 girls entered the championship this year that only those with handicaps of +4.5 or better will tee it up on Monday and Tuesday in two stroke-play qualifying rounds to decide the 64 contestants for the match-play stages, beginning on Wednesday.
The girls who participate in European Junior Ryder Cup team to play the United States in Kentucky next week are all in the field – Carly Booth, Kelly Tidy from Manchester, Anna Arrese (Spain) and Daisy Nielsen (Denmark).
Tidy reached the final of the British girls last year before losing to compatriot Henrietta Zuel who has sinced turned professional and thus unable to defend the coveted title.
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