By Brendan Barratt, Golf WA

Royal Fremantle’s Abbie Teasdale heads into this week’s Nexus Advisernet WA Open at The Western Australian Golf Club in good form and full of confidence as she prepares for one of the toughest challenges of her exciting young career.

Since the event is a men’s tournament on the ISPS Handa PGA Tour of Australasia, Teasdale and the five other amateur women who have earned a spot in the field - Celine Chen, Mia Lawson, Kathryn Norris, Sheridan Clancy and Fiona Xu - will play from the same tees as the men – which of course translates into a monstrously long golf course.

Only once in the history of the Nexus Advisernet WA Open has a woman made the cut – Kirsten Rudgeley at Cottesloe Golf Club back in 2019.

“I played a practice round this morning and it was very long,” Teasdale explained. “I was hitting woods into most of the greens.

“There were a few holes where I had an iron in, and I’ll need to take advantage of those. Otherwise I’ll have to play safe and trust my short game to help me make pars.”

Teasdale, 20, has had a breakthrough year and is now ranked No 2 in Western Australia, behind Rudgeley. In March, she won the prestigious Riversdale Cup in Melbourne for her first national all-ages title. She followed that up with a sensational win in the English Amateur Championship in August and the Barra & O’Dea on home soil title later that month.

“This has been my best year so far and I’m playing some of my best golf at the moment,” Teasdale explained, “so it will be a tough, but good challenge.

“Obviously making the cut is my first goal, but I want to play my best golf and see what happens. Regardless of the result, the experience from playing a big professional event like this is always good and I’ll learn a lot from it.”

Teasdale has some experience of playing the Western Australian Golf Club layout, although arguably from a different set of tees.

“I won the WA Amateur there in 2019 and I’ve played the course quite a few times in penants and junior events,” she says. “It’s pretty similar to Freo, so I’m comfortable playing there.”

Teasdale, who works part time at Wembley Golf Club, has ambitions of graduating to the professional game in the future. “I’m in no rush to turn pro,” she says, “but I’ll think about heading over to Europe either next year or the year after. My main goal is to get onto the LPGA Tour.”

Tournaments like the Nexus Advisernet WA Open will certainly help Teasdale on her journey to the LPGA Tour.

“I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself, but I really want to do well in this event,” she admits.

Teasdale tees off at 12:47 in Thursday’s first round.