Given that the winners of the last two Majors on the women’s circuit this season have a combined age of 37, you can forgive Pamela Pretswell for feeling old. She isn’t, of course, but at just 27, the Lanarkshire lass often feels like a veteran.
This week at CordeValle in California, Pretswell will get up close and personal with the global game’s young guns when she makes her first appearance on American soil as a professional in the US Women’s Open. She’s tasted competition on the other side of the Atlantic before, in the 2010 Curtis Cup and the following year’s US Amateur Championship, but this will be a different ball game.
The winner of the last Major on the female front this season was 18-year-old Brooke Henderson, who won the Women’s PGA Championship in June. Before that it was the remarkable 19-year-old, Lydia Ko, who landed April’s ANA Inspiration.
Ko continues to be the dominant force in the women’s game and Pretswell is well aware of her abundant qualities.
“When I grow up, I’d like to be like Lydia,” said the Scot with a chuckle. “I actually played against her in the Astor Trophy back 2011 in the foursomes and she was only 14 then. I was partnering Kelsey MacDonald in the GB&I team against Ko and Cecilia Cho and we lost. I was 21 then and Lydia was just awesome. It’s remarkable what she’s achieved. I did appreciate who I was playing against and that she was something very special but you just had to try and forget the age difference.”
Despite all these teenage kicks, Pretswell continues to make her own quiet strides on the professional stage. A share of second in the Tipsport Women’s Masters in the Czech Republic a couple of weeks ago – her best finish in four years on the tour - injected her season with renewed vigour while her qualification for this week’s US Open has given her plenty to look forward to over the next month or so.
“My second-place finish also got me into the Women’s British Open so that was very timely,” said the former British Women’s Amateur Strokeplay champion. “I’ve been playing well all season but you wouldn’t know that from the results. I was doing well but not scoring but then it came together in the Czech Republic. In fact, since I qualified for the US Open a few weeks before that, it’s really kicked in. The putting has been improving. That’s often been my handicap. I was averaging maybe 32 or 33 per round and now it’s down to 30 or 31. That can make a huge difference at this level. I could do with a few more dropping, though.
"It has been a stop start season on the Ladies Tour and it can be hard to get some momentum going but now I have the US Open, the Scottish Ladies and the British Women’s coming up.”
Pretswell, who will be joined at CordeValle this week by compatriot Catriona Matthew, is well aware that the trip to the west coast of America will be a step into the golfing unknown for her. She’s been seeking the local knowledge of her Ladies European Tour colleague Beth Allen, a Californian who is now based in Edinburgh, while she has organised two practice rounds at courses near the host venue to get acclimatised before she explores CordeValle’s own nooks and crannies at the start of the week. “I’ve no excuses,” she said.
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