Anna Foster exits Women’s Amateur with ‘more self-confidence and inner belief’

The Elm Park talent (22) lost 4&2 to the clinical Swede Louise Rydqvist but with a summer of big amateur events to come, she now believes has the game to compete with the best as she looks forward to the LET and LPGA qualifying schools later this year.

“If someone had told me beginning of the week you made it to the quarterfinals, I would have bitten their hand off,” said Foster, who fought back from two down after eight holes to level the match by the 10th but lost the 12th, 13th, 15th and 16th to bow out.

“To be the last out girl for a few rounds, it felt special and having all the support of members (from Elm Park) I enjoyed it, and it’s meant to be for Louise. She didn’t really make a mistake. Yeah, I’m happy enough.”

Foster was left to rue some crucial short misses with the putter and her bogey at the par-three 12th signalled the beginning of the end.

“I felt like some shots were going her way where they could have gone either way, and 12 was a big moment,” she said. “I hit a really good shot in, but it just bounced over the green, and that up-and-down from back there is pretty brutal.”

She almost snatched a half at the par five at the 13th, where she was in a bunker from the tee, but went two down when her long-range putt finished on the lip.

“Almost making that par putt as well, I could tell it was like kind of tough to get momentum,” she said. “So I’m still trying to hang in there, but it was definitely hard to break in.”

Rydqvyst, who was runner-up in the Women’s Amateur in 2022, turned the screw at the 15th, where she two-putted from the swale right of the green for a winning par after Foster’s downwind recovery from the left greenside bunker ran 18 feet away.

The match then ended at the par-five 16th, where Foster had to chip out sideways from under a gorse bush and eventually conceded after failing to make five.

The Auburn University graduate was still upbeat about her performance as she prepares to join the Irish squad for the European Amateur Team Championships in Spain.

“It was really fun to have all those people around, and they wanted me to do well, so I tried to enjoy it as much as I could,” she said.

Having won the Flogas Irish Women’s Open Strokeplay last week and reached the last eight of the Women’s Amateur, she left Portmarnock feeling she belongs among the elite.

“I think it’s more self-confidence and inner belief than anything else,” she said. “The last few weeks have shown me that I am a good player, and I deserve to be where I am. It’s nice for me to be able to look back at the last two weeks and say, ‘Well, good job, you did well’.”

Rydqvist faces Lorna McClymont in this afternoon’s semi-finals following the Scot’s 7&6 demolition of French star Ines Archer.

In the other half of the draw, Denmark’s Marie Eline Madsen beat American Annabelle Pancake 3&2 to set up a semi-final showdown with American Melanie Green, who came back from three down after five holes to beat Germany’s Paula Schulz-Hanssen with a par at the 20th.