Want to see the future of ladies golf? Tune into Sky Sports this week to see the brightest stars of the amateur game.
Brightest stars of the ladies amateur game on Sky Sports
Want to see the future of ladies golf? Tune into Sky Sports this week and get the added (and rare) bonus of seeing two of the British Isles finest golf courses on your television screens.
LGU Golf Monthly is a new programme that will feature the best action and the brightest stars of the ladies amateur game.
The first edition covers a busy period in the Ladies Golf Union calendar, with footage from three top tournaments that have taken place in the last month.
It starts with the Ladies British Amateur Championship which was hosted by the stunning Royal Portrush GC in Northern Ireland.
On an island that possesses a ridiculous number of superb pieces of linksland, Royal Portrush is undoubtedly one of the best and it witnessed a fine week for young British talent.
Great things
In recent years winners and finalists at the British Amateur have gone on to great things in the professional ranks, they include Anna Nordqvist, Aza Munoz and Caroline Hedwall (already a two-time winner this year in her rookie season).
After so much European success in recent years, the home nations have begun to fight back and this year's winner was England's Lauren Taylor who, at 16 years of age, became the youngest winner in the event's history and plans to follow the route trod by Nordqvist, Munoz and Hedwall having enrolled with a US university just weeks before her success.
The 2011 tournament also witnessed a strong defence of the title by Taylor's fellow countrywoman Kelly Tidy, who took a smart mental approach into the week: "Off to Ireland," she wrote on her official Facebook page, "not to "defend" my British title. But to go and try to win it again."
Tidy, like the young Welsh player Amy Boulden, was defeated in the semi-finals, but the pair of them linked up in the following weeks at the The Astor Trophy (a team competition for Commonwealth nations) and The Vagliano Trophy (GB&I versus Continental Europe).
Both those events also feature in LGU Golf Monthly and the Astor came down to a scrap between GB&I and a strong New Zealand team.
The Kiwis included the world ranked number one and two in the ladies amateur game - the precocious talent of Lydia Ko and Cecilia Cho.
Ko has only just turned 14 and yet has finished seventh and fourth in the LET-sanctioned New Zealand Open in the last two seasons, and she very nearly won this year's New South Wales Open up against a strong professional field.
According to reports in her homeland, she is, unsurprisingly, already being courted by IMG.
The final action comes from the Vagliano Trophy which took place at Royal Porthcawl GC, the great links course on the south coast of Wales.
The 30 minute show will be broadcast four times this week.
