Ponte on course to be the best ever after fourth title

THE Guernsey women's golfing heritage includes a handful of truly outstanding players, but in young Aimee Ponte perhaps we may be witnessing the best yet.

A week past her 17th birthday she was not at her best on the short but tricky La Grande Mare course which played host to the 2013 final, but an 8 and 7 victory over former champion Kay Mapley was her third victory by that convincing margin in the tournament and provided ample acknowledgement that she is, by some way, much better than the rest, just as Veronica Bougourd was at her peak and, before her, the outstanding Nan Lindsay.

Mapley, one of the finest female golfing technicians and still no mean performer herself, could not get near the defending champion, but then nobody expected her to.

Ponte threatened one of those sorry and painful double-figure beatings that this old tournament's climax occasionally throws up, when she sat down to lunch seven up and cruising.