{"id":616592,"date":"2026-06-02T06:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T06:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/616592\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T06:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T06:50:11","slug":"hard-work-delivers-west-championship-for-cantwell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/616592\/","title":{"rendered":"Hard work delivers West Championship for Cantwell"},"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&#8217;s 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>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>She now follows in the footsteps of Shane Lowry who claimed the men\u2019s equivalent in Co Sligo in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Definitely a nice one to have with Shane, great for the club,&#8221; said Cantwell. &#8220;Everyone 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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cantwell began her weekend with a blistering 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 lang=\"en\">Ella Cantwell seals her win at the West of Ireland Women&#8217;s Amateur Open Championship in Castle Dargan \u26f3\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/YZfcP6jnNK\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/YZfcP6jnNK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Golf Ireland (@GolfIreland_) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/GolfIreland_\/status\/2061434331378147732?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">June 1, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>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. 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>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>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>&#8220;I was seeing my coach on Friday and we just fixed something and I started swinging the club pretty well,&#8221; said Cantwell.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My 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>&#8220;I was coming here to compete, I wanted to play steady golf and try my best to compete at the level that&#8217;s here and I did.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I 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>&#8220;It\u2019s nice to see hard work and all that paying off. I\u2019ll definitely enjoy this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>                    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/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":616593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-616592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}