The English Women’s Amateur Championship is a match play contest that was first organized by the National Golf Alliance in 1912. Women’s competitive golf had been played at a national level in the British Isles since 1893, when the Ladies’ Golf Union was established, and The Women’s Amateur championship was first played at Lytham & St Annes in June of that year.

The Irish Ladies Golf Union was founded in Belfast within a few months of the LGU’s formation and their inaugural ladies’ national competition was played the following year at Carnalea in Bangor. The Scottish Ladies’ Golfing Association and Welsh Ladies’ Golf Unions were created in 1904 and both women’s organizations had national championships up and running immediately.

Quite why it took the women in England until 1912 to inaugurate their own competition is anybody’s guess. Still, better late than never and the first English tournament took place at Prince’s, with Miss M. Gardner beating Mrs Cantley at the 20th hole in the match play final. The English Women’s Golf Association ran the event from 1952 until 2011, when it merged with the EGU to form England Golf.

Only three editions of the tournament were played before World War I intervened to suspend the competition for four years and Cecil Leitch won either side of the break, at Walton Heath in 1914 then at Royal Lytham & St Annes in 1919. One of three sisters who all played the game to a high standard, Cecil also won the Women’s Amateur immediately before and after the Great War, and would claim four of those titles in total by 1926.

Joyce Wethered was the next woman to make her mark on the English Championship, winning five straight titles from 1920 at Sheringham to 1924 at Cooden Beach. Playing out of Worplesdon, she matched her main rival Cecil Leith by capturing four Women’s Amateur titles during the 1920s, beating Leitch in two of those finals; at Royal St George’s in 1922 and Royal Troon in 1925.

Molly Gourlay, a member of Camberley Heath and Sunningdale Ladies, won two English Amateur Championships, at Woodhall Spa in 1926 and at Broadstone in 1929, and she was also successful in national competitions in Europe; winning three French Opens and two Belgium Championships in the 1920s and two Swedish titles in the 1930s. She also played alongside captain Joyce Wethered in the first GB&I Curtis Cup team at Wentworth in 1932.

Other members of that team beaten 5½-3½ by the USA included English Amateur champions Diane Fishwick (who won the event in 1932 at Royal Ashdown Forest) and Enid Wilson, the winner at Walton Heath in 1928 and Aldeburgh in 1930. Wanda Morgan, the 1931 English Ladies’ champion at Ganton also played in that first Curtis Cup match and she would go on to win back-to-back English titles at Hayling in 1936 and St Enodoc in 1937.

When competition resumed again after an 8-year stoppage due to World War II, it didn’t take long for a new golfing heroine to appear in the shape of Frances Stephens, daughter of Fred Stephens, the club professional at Bootle. She won the English Amateur in 1948 and 1954, and in between those years she contested four Women’s Amateur finals, winning two of them (at Royal St David’s in 1949 and Ganton in 1954). Frances also played for England for 11 successive years from 1955 and was chosen for three Curtis Cup teams.

Parkstone’s Jean Bisgood was the next English woman to shine in the national championship, winning at St Annes Old Links in 1951, Prince’s in 1953 and Queen’s Park in 1957. She also won national titles in Sweden in 1952, Germany and Italy in 1953, Portugal in 1954 and Norway in 1955. Jean represented England for eight years and played in the Curtis Cup three times in the 1950s before later captaining the team.

Sudbury’s Marley Spearman was twice the Women’s Amateur champion (at Carnoustie in 1961 and Royal Birkdale in 1962) before winning the English Amateur at Royal Lytham & St Annes with a 6&5 score line in the final against a Miss M. Everard in 1964. She came late to the game, having earlier forged a career in the theatre as a dancer, but she made up for lost time with her national titles, as well as participating in three Curtis Cup matches during the 1960s.

Angela Bonallack won two English championships; Formby in 1958 and Liphook in 1963, and sandwiched in between those two finals she finished runner-up on two occasions. Angela was a member of six Great Britain & Ireland Curtis Cup teams at the height of her golfing powers and she became one of the first women to be admitted as a member of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews when the club voted to accept lady members in 2014.

Mickey Walker had two Women’s Amateur titles to her name before she won the English Amateur at Broadstone in 1973. Later that year she turned professional and played on the LPGA Tour before leaving America to help establish the Ladies European Tour in the late 1970s. She captained the first four Solheim Cup teams between 1990 and 1996 but she never forgot her amateur roots, coaching the GB&I Curtis Cup teams in 1994, 1996 and 1998.

Jill Thornhill lost in the final of the English Women’s Amateur in 1974 but she won the event at Prince’s in 1986, having claimed the Women’s Amateur at Silloth three years earlier with a 3&1 victory against Regina Lautens from Switzerland. Jill made three Curtis Cup appearances during the 1980s and her international playing career with England spanned almost quarter of a century up until 1988.

Julie Otto’s record is a little harder to track if you don’t realize she was formerly known as Julie Wade then Julie Hall. She won her first English title at Little Aston in 1988 as Julie Wade then had her name etched on the trophy again as Julie Hall in 1994 and 1995. In between those years, she’s listed in the R&A’s records for her victories in the Women’s Amateur in 1990 and 1995 as Mrs J Hall. Julie also won national amateur titles in Spain and Australia, in addition to representing England and Great Britain & Ireland from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s.

In 2000, Emma Duggleby – who’d been crowned Women’s Amateur champion at Newport in 1994 – was going for her second title at Royal Troon but she lost in the final 5&4 to Rebecca Hudson. Twelve months further on, she reached the final again but once more lost out to Marta Prieto of Spain at Ladybank. By way of consolation, Emma lifted the English Amateur trophy at Hunstanton in 2000 then followed this up with a second title at Aldeburgh three years later.

Rebbeca Hudson turned professional after her second Women’s Amateur triumph in 2002, having won the English Women’s Amateur in 2001. Her first win on the Ladies European Tour arrived in 2006 at the Ladies Central European Open at Old Lake in Hungary and she also won the same year on the Sunshine Ladies Tour at Duban Country Club in South Africa. She’s recorded three more wins as a professional since then.

Bronte Law won the English Women’s Amateur Championship two years running, at St Enodoc in 2013 then at Hunstanton in 2014. She turned professional after competing in three Curtis Cup tournaments and winning the European Ladies Amateur Championship at Hooks in Sweden in 2016. She lost the 2019 LPGA Mediheal Championship in a playoff at a Lake Merced in California but bounced back three weeks later to win the Pure Silk Championship by two strokes at the Kingsmill Resort in Virginia.

Three clubs have hosted the English Women’s Amateur six times – Burnham & Berrow, Ganton and Huntanton – and three clubs have staged the event four times: Aldeburgh, Hayling and Woodhall Spa.

Only one course doesn’t make the cut below and that’s Queen’s Park, which does not feature in any of our county listings.