Áine Donegan believes her experience of playing in some of the biggest events in women’s golf has made her a strong contender to win the 121st Women’s Amateur Championship in Portmarnock.
Donegan has played in two US Women’s Opens, the World Amateur Team Championships and the KPMG Women’s Irish Open over the last twelve months and although she has only played Portmarnock Links on one occasion in practice, she knows her ‘A’ game is good enough to beat a world class field comprising of four of the top-10 female amateur golfers, starting on Monday.
“Yeah, I do. If I play my own game, my good enough is good enough. I think just believing in that mantra and hopefully all goes well.”
“I did well in the strokeplay last year and lost in the first round,” explained Donegan. “It’s all about getting through to the matchplay, it doesn’t matter really where you finish in the strokeplay so that would be something to get through the 36 holes and then after that just really focus on good matchplay golf. Portmarnock is a good matchplay course.
Donegan was under the weather at last week’s Flogas Irish Women’s Amateur Championship in Woodbrook, yet she still managed a top-5 finish and she feels the event served as the ideal preparation to gain some competitive sharpness ahead of the Women’s Amateur.
“It’s really nice to be home for the last few weeks and I was happy with how I played last week considering I was under the weather and nearly pulled out.
“The event was perfect timing for Portmarnock, it served as the warmup and Anna (Foster) had a great week which is great I was delighted for her.
“I can’t wait for this week, you have to treat all the events like they are the same. I love Portmarnock, I only played it for the first time last week and it’s in really good condition. My home course is Lahinch so I love the links golf, it will be a really good challenge. It’s going to test every facet of everyone’s game and the mental game so it will be a really good week.”
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