Cajsa Persson and Linda Wessberg of Team Sweden 3 won the gold medal in the final of the Women's European Golf Team Championships at Gleneagles on Sunday.
Cajsa Persson and Linda Wessberg of Team Sweden 3 won the gold medal in the final of the Women's European Golf Team Championships at Gleneagles on Sunday.
In persistent and sometimes torrential rain, France 2 took the silver medal and Great Britain 3 secured bronze in the final round of matches on the PGA Centenary course yesterday.
The Swedes quickly built a comfortable lead in the final, winning the 2nd, 5th and 6th holes to go 3-up against the French team of Justine Dreher and Manon Mollé in the matchplay foursomes.
However, the French pair won the 10th and 11th with pars and then Mollé levelled the match when she sank a birdie putt from 15 feet to win the par-5 18th hole.
At the first extra hole, the par-4 1st, Sweden made an up and down from the bunker and the hole was halved in fours.
On the next, the par-3 10th, Sweden’s birdie putt was conceded after Dreher pulled her tee shot into thick rough and Mollé played the second over the green into thick rough, eventually racking up a double-bogey five and the Swedes won on the 20th hole.
Wessberg, a three-time Ladies European Tour winner and 2007 Solheim Cup player commented, "it’s always fun to play team matchplay."
"I would love to play this format every week!"
"We had it in our hands and then we let go of it a little bit, but when it went to the play-off I knew that we could win and I had a good feeling, but it’s matchplay, so you never know."
Persson, a second year LET player, said: "I’m speechless. This is amazing: the biggest thing in my career."
After the elation of holing her birdie putt on 18, Mollé was disappointed not to take the gold but said: "I’m grateful to be able to share this moment with Justine. We didn’t get the gold, but we will take great memories from this event." Dreher added, "it's been a very special week."
"This is the best event I’ve played in since I turned professional."
The Great Britain 3 team of Meghan MacLaren and Michele Thomson won the bronze medal match by 3&1 over the GB 1 team of Ricoh Women’s British Open champion Georgia Hall and US Women’s Senior Open champion Dame Laura Davies.
The major champions took the early lead but GB 3, who had earlier in the week labelled themselves the British ‘underdogs’, pulled it back to all square after 12. They then won the 14th, 15th and 17th, to claim their second medal of the European Championships.
On adding the bronze to the silver they won in the mixed team event on Saturday, MacLaren commented, "we could have won gold this week but we put that disappointment behind us and to come away with two medals is very special."
Thomson added, "I'm just over the moon. It was extremely hard-going out there because of the weather. The course was playing so long. There weren't many birdies out there. We just played sensibly. We ground it out together. I'm really proud of Meghan."
Pedro Oriol and Scott Fernandez of Spain won the gold medal in the men's team golf competition, whilst Iceland's Birgir Hafthorsson and Axel Boasson took silver, and Francesco Laporta and Alessandro Tadini of Italy 2 won bronze.
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