QUEANBEYAN golfer Lauren Maher says she is stunned to have won the Queanbeyan Gold Club women's championship nine years in a row after she had a six month break to look after her new-born.
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Playing in her first competition in half a year, she recovered from a one shot deficit to championship runner-up Chloe Thornton to take a big 11 shot victory after the fourth and final round of competition on November 2.
While she said her win was "probably on par" with her other eight championships, she admitted it was made special after the birth of her baby and spending so much time away from the golf course.
"The biggest highlight for me personally was breaking 80 [taking less than 80 shots to sink each hole] each day as I have a three-month-old baby and I hadn't played since Easter," Maher said.
"I literally had not picked up a club until I played in the championships last weekend, so I was pretty happy to have four good rounds after all that time off."
After the first round she found herself down 75-74 to Thornton, but she jumped to the lead in the second and third rounds with scores of 77 and 75, while Thornton lost her accuracy in scoring 80 and 83 in the same rounds.
But Maher said there was more youth in this year's competition and that made for a more competitive field than recent years.
"Playing with Chloe [Thornton] and Amber [Thornton, younger sister of Chloe] it went down to the last day which was good competition," she said.
"But there wasn't really any times I thought I was going to lose it, and I had a 10 shot lead heading into the last round."
The 32-year old has played at Queanbeyan for 20 years now, and aims to compete in the regional champion of champions event, which is yet to be scheduled.