MORISSET’S former professional golfer Louise Mullard has made a stunning return to elite competition golf with a 12-stroke win at the Australian Mid-Amateur Championship in South Australia.
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Mullard, 53, carded rounds of 80-77-77 to win the 30-to-54 years event at a windswept Links Lady Bay Resort.
She carried a 7-stroke lead into the third and final round, but said the course ensured she stayed focussed.
“I still had to concentrate, even though I had a bit of a lead, because every hole was quite challenging,” Mullard said.
Plenty of bunkers and long grass off the fairways were waiting to swallow errant shots, she said.
“And the greens were quite large and undulating. Some of them would have been 40 metres long,” she said.
A former two-time Australian Girls Amateur Champion in the 1980s, Mullard played professionally for more than a decade on the European and Asian tours.
Among the courses she traipsed in the UK was Royal Birkdale, while Portugal and Spain were also among her favourite places to play.
“My best score was a course-record 66 at Vilamoura, in Spain,” she said.
Mullard put the clubs away for more than a decade, as marriage and family commitments took priority.
She returned to the fairways at Morisset Country Club in 2012, and says she’s now relaxed and enjoying the game more than ever.
Advances in video and other coaching technologies meant that it was now easier to analyse important aspects of her game such as swing planes, she said.