{"id":477702,"date":"2026-06-01T16:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/477702\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T16:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:18:10","slug":"ella-cantwell-wins-inaugural-west-of-ireland-womens-amateur-open-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/477702\/","title":{"rendered":"Ella Cantwell wins inaugural West of Ireland Women\u2019s Amateur Open Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Esker Hills golfer Ella Cantwell said it was the culmination of a lot of hard work as she became the inaugural winner of the West of Ireland Women\u2019s Amateur Open Championship.<\/p>\n<p>The 17-year-old Offaly native equalled the course record with her opening round 65 yesterday morning and she closed out her third round with eight birdies in a brilliant 67.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Cantwell finished eight shots clear of Hannah Lee-McNamara (Royal Portrush) and Aideen Walsh (Lahinch) on 18-under-par to make history in Castle Dargan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">She now follows in the footsteps of Shane Lowry who claimed the men\u2019s equivalent in Co Sligo in 2008.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cDefinitely a nice one to have with Shane, great for the club,\u201d said Cantwell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cEveryone looks up to Shane in Esker Hills. I\u2019ve got honorary life membership with him this year. It\u2019s just really nice to have him from the club.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Cantwell began her weekend with a phenomenal 65, which included five birdies and two eagles. She followed that up with a solid second round of 72 and that gave her a one-shot lead ahead of Walsh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Cantwell did not look fazed during her final round and she pushed on with three birdies around the turn, to move to 15-under-par.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/5102523_1_articleinlinemobile_94903_2970511.jpg\" alt=\"West of Ireland Women's Amateur Open Championship at Castle Dargan. Pic: \u00a9INPHO\/Tom Maher.\" title=\"West of Ireland Women's Amateur Open Championship at Castle Dargan. Pic: \u00a9INPHO\/Tom Maher.\" class=\"card-img\"\/>West of Ireland Women&#8217;s Amateur Open Championship at Castle Dargan. Pic: \u00a9INPHO\/Tom Maher.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">It was a sensational surge and Lee-McNamara mounted the biggest challenge with birdies on eight, nine and 12. Lee-McNamara had double-bogeyed the seventh straight after an eagle, which halted her momentum.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">But it was Cantwell who took up a four-shot advantage down the closing stretch, that lead became seven when she reeled off three birdies in a row between 12th and 14th holes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Cantwell birdied 17 too and despite an errant tee shot on the last she recovered to sink the bogey putt and put the seal on an emphatic win.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cI was seeing my coach on Friday and we just fixed something and I started swinging the club pretty well,\u201d said Cantwell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cMy ball was going left and it was because my left hand was too strong, so I weakened it a little bit and just started hitting the ball straight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cI was coming here to compete, I wanted to play steady golf and try my best to compete at the level that\u2019s here and I did.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cI was delighted with my first round but I knew I still had to go out and play as well as I could and today I fought as hard as I could and I was absolutely delighted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cIt\u2019s nice to see hard work and all that paying off. I\u2019ll definitely enjoy this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Esker Hills golfer Ella Cantwell said it was the culmination of a lot of hard work as she&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-477702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}