St Andrews golfer’s game is in great shape - but she may be forced off course until 2021

The North East Fife golfer carded a 76 to qualify from the event’s opening strokeplay round at West Lancashire GC before it moved onto a straight knockout, matchplay format.

There she saw off firstly German Chiara Horder and then Swiss Elena Moosman to advance to the final eight where the St Regulus amateur was paired against reigning champ, England’s Emily Toy.

The two went back and forth and couldn’t be separated after 18, Toy winning on a second play-off hole.

Despite the disappointment of being knocked out, Chloe knows her game is in excellent shape but, sadly, current circumstances mean that competitions, even at leading amateur level, are few and far between.

She said: “Emily is obviously a great player and was defending champion - that’s just the way it goes sometimes.

“When you get that far you start to taste the semi finals and final and know you can do it, but I have to realise that it was still a positive week given the circumstances.

“It’s frustrating that I can’t take that momentum into another tournament, sadly, because I don’t have anything else coming up.

“I’ll keep an eye out for anything, the European Ladies is at the end of September but it’s in Slovenia and I’m not going to go because of the uncertainty over Covid and not knowing if it’ll go ahead or not, and the difficulty with booking things.

“The men’s version of it has already been cancelled, that was due to be played in France.

“It may all mean that I can’t play another tournament until the new year.

“I was looking forward to graduating uni this year, then playing different events and working hard over the winter so it’s just very strange to not be able to get out competing.”

The spring and early summer months spent on lockdown presented problems and frustrations for all athletes and sportspeople.

Fortunately Chloe was able to turn her focus elsewhere, and dedicated herself to her university work.

The enforced lockdown and closure of golf courses possibly had a positive effect on her game after what she admits was a patchy start to 2020.

“It was a tough start to the year, I only had a couple of tournaments and my game was ok but I missed a couple of cuts,” explained Chloe.

“Then coronavirus and lockdown came.

“I graduated uni around that time as well and was doing my dissertation, so I took a bit of time off golf.

“It wasn’t a planned break but maybe gave me a good chance to re-set and focus once the courses all opened again.

“It was nice to practice knowing the British Amateur was coming up.”