Coming off the back of mixed fortunes last weekend in NSW, Lauren Walsh and Olivia Mehaffey are back in action as the LET rolls into Bonville’s Pacific Bay Resort for the Women’s Australian Classic.
Walsh arrives on the back of a T-16 finish last week at Magenta Shores and having shown good consistency all weekend, will take confidence to Pacific Bay Resort. England’s Bronte Law too comes into this tournament on a rich vein of form. From hitting aces in NSW last week to equalling the course record on Sunday only to come up short, Law is going to be a red-hot watch at this weekend’s classic.
Bonville is idyllic, between Sydney and Brisbane, offering “koalas, swamp wallabies, and Eastern Water Dragons,” as just some of the wildlife that may be expected on course. But the players will have more than enough to focus on with the task at hand, with the par-3s particularly teasing, and there are five of them to navigate, but also five par-5s to offer good scoring opportunities on the par-72 layout.
Looking to bounce back from a missed cut Last week, Tandragee’s Mehaffey heads out on Friday at 7.55am in Bonville with Hannah Burke and Australian amateur Belinda Ji. Mehaffey has shown that she has the game to be one of the leading players on the LET circuit as was shown at the Amundi German Masters last year, but she is still searching for consistency in what will now be her third year on the Ladies European Tour.
Consistency has been Walsh’s trademark in her debut season, but she’s yet to truly contend coming down the stretch on Sunday but it appears to only be a matter of time before she ticks that box and starts to become a consistent presence at the top of LET leaderboards.
Walsh heads out at 7.45am (local) with Swede, Linea Johansson and Iowa State’s Amelia Mehmet Grohn.
Last week’s winner, ending a 13-year LET drought, Mariajo Uribe will kick off tomorrow looking to go back-to-back, teeing off with her antagonist from last Sunday, Bronte Law and Australian stalwart, Kirsten Rudgley, meaning there are several strong groupings to look forward to.
Runnner-up from last week at the NSW Open, Law was asked about her form and how to take it into this weekend: “I did what I said I was going to do, I went out there and tried to post a number,” she said. “I was really happy with how I played. I had a couple of bogeys that I got pretty unlucky with and didn’t really do much wrong.”
However, this is her first time at Bonville, and the course presents a very different challenge than Magenta Shores did last week.
“It’s very different from last week,” she said. “It’s very green, but it seems to be a good course. I’ve only played once so far. It was quite wet out there. I imagine it’ll be quite wet for the duration of the week.”
With Law sitting top of the Ladies European Tour Order of Merit after her five tournaments played, there is work to do for the chasing pack as the Tour finishes its two-week stint in Australia. Charley Hull lurks ominously in third spot despite having just two starts, while off the crest of last week’s wave, Mariajo Uribe has climbed to fifth in the rankings.
These are all pretenders to the championship this weekend, however, the defending champion – a three-time LET winner – is ready for the challenge. Meghan MacLaren won the 2022 hosting and with no repeat championship in 2023, returns looking to make it back-to-back Australian Women’s Classics 24 months apart.
“I got here on Monday afternoon,” said MacLaren, “and I came on my own when there was nobody here and it’s cool to soak that up a little bit and you can’t help but feel more motivated.”
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