Meet 2012 GB&I Curtis Cup Team

Amy Boulden, 18, Wales 

Claimed the 2012 Welsh Amateur Championship in May when she defeated defending champion and Curtis Cup reserve Becky Harries, 4 and 2, in the final at Cardigan Golf Club. It was a remarch of the 2011 final.

Boulden represented Great Britain and Ireland on the victorious five-member team that competed against Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia in the 2011 Astor Trophy competition at Fairhaven Golf Club in England. A week after that successful event, she played for GB&I in the Vagliano Trophy at Royal Porthcawl in Wales, a competition against Continental Europe that features nine female golfers on each side.

Became the first Welsh lady to claim the prestigious Helen Holm Scottish Women's Open Amateur Stroke-Play Championship held at Royal Troon (one round) and the Portland Course at Royal Troon (two rounds). The event was first contested in 1973. 

In August of 2011, Boulden won all of her singles matches for Wales in the Girls’ Home Internationals at Gullane Golf Club in Scotland. She finished fourth in the 2011 British Women’s Open Amateur Stroke-Play at Royal Ashdown Forest. She also was a semifinalist at the Ladies British Open Amateur at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland in June of 2011.

Boulden represented Europe in the 2011 Junior Solheim Cup match against the United States in Ireland. She was a reserve player for the 2010 GB&I Curtis Cup Team. She also is the daughter of a golf club professional.

Holly Clyburn, 20, England 

Arguably the most internationally experienced member of the Great Britain and Ireland Curtis Cup Team. She competed in the 2010 Match at Essex County Club in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass., and played in the Nick Faldo Series Grand Final in Brazil two years ago. Clyburn, Leona Maguire and Pamela Pretswell are the only returners from the 2010 Curtis Cup Team.

To kick off the 2012 amateur season, she finished fourth at the Dixie Women’s Amateur, tied for fifth at the Harder Hall Invitational and posted a top-10 finish at the South Atlantic Ladies Amateur (SALLY) the following week. All of those events were conducted in Florida.

In 2011, Clyburn was a member of the victorious GB&I Astor Trophy tournament team that defeated New Zealand, Canada, Australia and South Africa at Fairhaven Golf Club in England, and represented GB&I a week later at the Vagliano Trophy, a competition the team lost to Continental Europe at Royal Porthcawl in Wales.

She also finished third at the 2011 Helen Holm Scottish Women’s Open Amateur Stroke-Play at Troon. In 2009, Clyburn came to the forefront when she defeated Kelly Tidy in the final of the English Girls Championship.

Charley Hull, 16, England 

The teenager represented Europe at the 2011 Junior Solheim Cup match in Ireland and was on the Great Britain and Ireland side for the inaugural Junior Vagliano Trophy competition that was held last year at Royal Porthcawl in Wales. Hull also claimed the English and Welsh Women’s Open Stroke-Play titles, and was defeated in the English Women’s Closed Amateur.

This past January, Hull traveled to the United States to compete on the Orange Blossom circuit in Florida. She won the Harder Hall Invitational and followed it up with a victory at the South Atlantic Ladies Amateur. In defense of her Jones/Doherty title, she lost in the championship match to three-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion and 2008 USA Curtis Cup participant Meghan Stasi.

Also made the 36-hole cut at the LPGA Tour's Kraft Nabisco Championship, the first women's professional major of the year. It was her first appearance in a women's professional major. In May, she made a smashing debut on the Ladies European Tour by finishing fifth at the Turkish Airlines Ladies Open.

Hull, who lives in Kettering, plays out of Woburn Golf Club. Ranked No. 4 in the World Amateur Women’s Golf Ranking supported by the USGA and The R&A, Hull was a special amateur invitee (one of five chosen) to the LPGA Tour’s first major championship of the season – the Kraft Nabisco Championship – in Mission Hills, Calif. Because of this invitation, Hull missed the GB&I practice session to determine this year’s Curtis Cup Team. But the Ladies Golf Union selectors, which originally said Hull’s absence would keep her off the squad, decided to select the teenager based on her strong amateur performances and high world ranking. Hull is currently ranked two spots ahead of Curtis Cup teammate Leona Maguire and three positions ahead of another teammate, Stephanie Meadow.

Bronte Law, 17, England 

In 2011, Law won the Scottish Under-16 Girls’ Open Stroke-Play Championship at Strathmore and played for the winning English team at the 2011 Girls’ Home Internationals at Gullane Golf Club in Scotland.

In the British Girls’ Open Amateur at the same venue, Law was dormie-2 against Belgium’s Margaux Vanmol in the round of 16, but lost the match in extra holes. Vanmol went on to win the championship.

Law also won four out of a possible five points for England at the 2011 Women’s Home Internationals at Hillside Golf Club in England.

She represented Great Britain and Ireland in the inaugural Junior Vagliano Trophy competition at Royal Porthcawl in Wales.

Law plays out of Bramhall Golf Club.

Leona Maguire, 17, Ireland 

One of three returning players from the 2010 Great Britain and Ireland Curtis Cup Team (Holly Clyburn and Pamela Pretswell are the other two), Maguire won the silver medal in the 2011 Ladies European Amateur (LEAR), and captured the Irish Ladies Golf Union’s women’s and girls’ Order of Merit titles for the 2011 season. Leona and twin sister Lisa, who is the first reserve for the 2012 squad, were just 15 when they represented GB&I at Essex County Club two years ago.

Easily claimed the 2012 Irish U-18 Girls' Open Stroke Play Championship.

Leona started 2011 strong with a 15-stroke victory at the Portuguese Women’s Amateur, and was second in 2012. She also reached the quarterfinals of the 2011 Spanish Women’s Amateur, and was runner-up the following month at the Helen Holm Scottish Women’s Stroke-Play Championship at Troon. After finishing third at the 2011 Irish Girls’ Open Stroke-Play, she won the Irish Women’s Open Stroke-Play Championship. The following week, she won all three of her matches for GB&I against Continental Europe at the Vagliano Trophy at Royal Porthcawl in Wales.

In July of 2011, Leona finished fourth at the European Women’s Individual Championship and followed that up the following month with an impressive six-shot victory at the British Women’s Open Amateur Stroke-Play Championship at Royal Ashdown.

Leona represented Europe at the Junior Solheim Cup in Ireland in September. A year before competing in the 2010 Curtis Cup, Leona made her debut in the Vagliano Trophy against Europe in Germany.

Stephanie Meadow, 20, Northern Ireland 

Meadow, a sophomore at the University of Alabama, topped the 2011 Ladies European Amateur Rankings (LEAR) to win the gold medal. That achievement helped her move to No. 4 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, the highest spot for any Great Britain and Ireland female golfer. She is currently ranked 10th in the world

Meadow has been in the United States since she was 14, having attended a golf academy in Florida before earning a scholarship to Alabama, where she is a teammate of 2012 USA Curtis Cup Team member Brooke Pancake.

Meadow did not take long to have an impact during her freshman season (2010-11), winning the Lady Puerto Rico Classic and following that up with a triumph at the Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate. In the spring, she reeled off three top-four finishes before capturing the NCAA East Regional title by six strokes and earning first-team All-America honors by the National Golf Coaches of America.

During the 2011-12 season Meadow continued her strong form by winning the Mercedes-Benz SEC/Pac-12 Challenge in Tennessee. She picked up her fifth collegiate victory in March at the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate.

In Europe, Meadow finished second at the 2011 Irish Women’s Open Amateur Stroke-Play and the European Women’s Amateur, won by compatriot Lisa Maguire.

Meadow, who plays out of Royal Portrush Golf Club, was a second reserve for the 2010 GB&I Curtis Cup Team. She made her GB&I debut at the 2011 Vagliano Trophy competition held at Royal Porthcawl in Wales last June.

Pamela Pretswell, 23, Scotland 

Pretswell is one of three returning members from the 2010 Great Britain and Ireland Curtis Cup Team  (Holly Clyburn and Leona Maguire are the others) who competed at Essex County Club in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass. She posted a 1-2 overall record, winning a four-ball (best-ball) match with Danielle McVeigh of Ireland against the USA duo of Jennifer Song and Kimberly Kim.

Early in her career, however, Pretswell was one of her country’s best badminton and tennis players. She competed in Junior Wimbledon and was a contemporary of current world No. 4 and fellow Scot Andy Murray until she decided to quit racquet sports altogether at the age of 14 because it took up too much of her time.

She proved naturally as gifted in golf as tennis, and within a couple of years, was a regular choice for the Scottish Women’s International. She also represented GB&I at the 2009 and 2011 Vagliano Trophy competitions against Continental Europe.

Individually, she won the Swiss Women’s Open Amateur on a 2009 holiday trip, and in 2010, lost by one stroke for the Austrian Women’s Open Amateur title. That same year, she won the British Women’s Open Stroke-Play Championship at Tenby in South Wales.

While she did enter Ladies European Tour Qualifying School in Spain this past January (failed to get her card), she remained an amateur throughout the process. Last June, Pretswell graduated from Glasgow University. She currently plays out of Bothwell Castle G.C.

Finished joint third at the 2012 Helen Holm Scottish Women's Open Amateur Stroke-Play Championship at Royal Troon and the Portland Course at Royal Troon.

In May, Pretswell became the first amateur to win on the Ladies European Tour Access Series since its incepton in 2010 when she claimed the Ljungbyhed Park PGA Ladies Open in Sweden.

Kelly Tidy, 20, England 

Tidy was defeated in the final of the British Girls’ Open Amateur Championship two consecutive years (2008 and 2009), but she won the 2010 British Ladies Open Amateur Championship at Ganton Golf Club in England, beating Kelsey MacDonald in the 18-hole final. Tidy advanced to the semifinals in her title defense last year before falling to eventual champion Lauren Taylor in extra holes.

In May at Royal Birkdale, Tidy beat Georgia Hall in a playoff to win the English Women's Amateur title.

In 2011, she finished third in the English Women’s Open Amateur Stroke-Play and second in a professional field for the Ladies European Tour Access Series’ Azores Open.

Tidy claimed four out of a possible five points for England as it won the 2011 Women’s Home Internationals at Hillside Golf Club last September.

A former Junior Ryder Cup player, Tidy made her GB&I debut in the 2011 Astor Trophy and Vagliano Trophy competitions at Fairhaven Golf Club (England) and Royal Porthcawl Golf Club (Wales), respectively.

Tidy maintained her amateur status while trying to gain her Ladies European Tour card at Qualifying School last August in Spain.