The 120th Women's Amateur: Coulter leads stroke play qualifiers

The 19-year-old signed for a two-under-par 70 to add to her opening 69 and a top qualifying total of five-under-par 139 in sunny conditions on the Kent coast.

Coulter, who recently finished her Freshman season at Arizona State University, was runner-up in the R&A Girls’ Amateur Championship in 2021 and today led the top-64 players and ties into the match play stage.

Having played in the Junior Vagliano Trophy at neighbouring Royal St George’s in 2019, Coulter used her links experience to record five birdies in her day two effort and finish three shots clear of four players on two-under-par. The quartet featured new women’s amateur world number one Ingrid Lindblad, Scotland’s Hannah Darling, American Latanna Stone and Sera Hasegawa from Japan.

Lindblad, who finished tied 32^nd in the Ladies European Tour/DP World Tour co-sanctioned Scandinavian Mixed last week, eased into the knock-out after a three-under-par 69 on day two. The Swede highlighted her day with two back nine eagles for a two-under-par total and a tie for second spot.

Darling achieved the same qualifying mark after two solid rounds of 71 as she aims to go better than the semi-final stage on her last two appearances in the Championship.

Jess Baker defeated Darling en route to victory at Hunstanton last year and she is again into the last-64 after responding from her opening 77 with a 69. The English player is aiming to be the first player to defend since Louise Stahle of Sweden in 2005.

Stone is part of a strong USA contingent in England’s south-east and she has quickly adjusted to her first experience of links golf. The world number 29 mixed an eagle, five birdies and three bogeys in her 68 to post a 36-hole total of two-under.

View the stroke play scores from The Women’s Amateur Championship here.

A strong field at Prince's

Prince’s has welcomed a world-class field of 144 players representing 36 countries, including no fewer than 12 players ranked inside the top-50 on the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking.

The winner of the Championship gains entry to the AIG Women’s Open, US Women’s Open, Amundi Evian Championship, Chevron Championship and, by tradition, will earn an invitation to compete at the Augusta National Women's Amateur.

The qualifying mark for the match play fell at seven-over-par, with Grace Crawford, the 2022 R&A Girls’ U16 Champion, Valentina Rossi, the Women’s Amateur Latin America Champion and Ting-Hsuan Huang, the 2022 Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific Champion among those to miss out.

The R&A will provide live video coverage of the quarter-finals and semi-finals on Saturday and Final on Sunday. This can be watched on The R&A’s website, randa.org, as well as its YouTube channel.

Spectators are welcome

Spectators are welcome to attend The Women’s Amateur Championship with tickets available to purchase at www.randa.org. Adult tickets are available from £10, with a four-day ticket just £25.

To encourage children and young people to attend The Women’s Amateur Championship, The R&A will continue the successful ‘Kids go Free’ programme which provides children under-16-years-old free entry to the Championship when accompanied by a paying adult. Half-price youth tickets are also available for 16-24-year-olds.