25 Oct 2019 | Amateur golf |
Sue Wooster's back-to-back triumphs
by Martin Blake
Victoria’s Sue Wooster has set herself to win a coveted USGA title next year, after she clinched back-to-back wins in the Australian Senior Women’s Amateur Championship at Nelson Bay Golf Club in New South Wales today.
Wooster, 57, from The National, took the final 4 & 3 against Louise Mullard from New South Wales today, sealing the triumph at the 15th hole.
She was two-under par for the day with three birdies, reaching three-up through 12 holes and hanging on from there against a top class opponent in Mullard, a former professional from Kooindah Waters in New South Wales.
“I played my best golf from tee to green today,” she said later. “And I putted well all week.”
Wooster was the raging favorite having won her first national title in the Barossa Valley last year, as well as medallist honors in the strokeplay section at Nelson Bay. Her pedigree is impressive, with two Canadian senior amateur championships and having twice been runner-up in the US Senior Amateur, in 2018 and 2019.
The grandmother of seven then swept everyone aside in her four matches, although she took until the 20th hole to beat Western Australia’s Sharon Dawson in the quarter-final, at one point having to hole an eight-foot putt for par on the 19th hole to extend the match. “I was lucky to win that one,” she said. “There’s always pressure and you do feel expectation to do well, even though I always say that expectation is no good for your golf.’’
Mullard, from Kooindah Waters Golf Club on the central coast of NSW, has won the past two Australian Mid Amateur Championships. She is a former professional who took a 10-year break from golf before resuming amateur play in 2012.
Wooster plans to return to North America next year to pursue her dream of a US Women’s Amateur title, having lost the past two finals.
“It is my goal to win that,’’ she said. “I want to get my name engraved on the list of winners of USGA events in their office (the Arnold Palmer Museum, where all winners are displayed). There are perks with it, but it’s not really the perks. It’s just to say that I’ve won a USGA event. It’s an incredible achievement to win one of those. But it’s getting harder every year. It’s a lot of golf. There’s not a lot of rest.”
She also has exemptions to play in the US Senior Open in New York, the US Amateur, US Senior and the US Mid Amateur although by tomorrow, she will have other priorities: the new house she is having built on the Mornington Peninsula, and a visit to her new grandchild, Charlie, who arrived into the world last Sunday, soon after she left to play the senior amateur. “I get to see him tomorrow,” she said.
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