Garvey storms home to win the NZ Women's Stroke Play Championship

Canterburys Amelia Garvey has produced a dominant display down the stretch to claim an authoritative victory in the New Zealand Womens Stroke Play Championship at the Hastings Golf Club today.

The 16-year-old showed an old head on her young shoulders when the pressure went on to etch her name into the Mellsop Cup.

Despite finishing with a comfortable six shot victory over Chantelle Cassidy (Riverside Golf Club) it was anything but clear cut with four holes to play.

Starting the back nine Garvey had a four-shot lead which Cassidy immediately started to eat into with a birdie on the 10th and after Garvey dropped shots on the 13th and 14th holes, Cassidy had reduced the deficit to only two.

A wayward drive by Cassidy on 15 led to a bogey and Garvey pounced, rolling in a 3 metre birdie putt to return the margin to four.

From there she went from strength to strength hitting it to a metre for an easy birdie on the par 3 16th, before using her length to make comfortable two putt birdies on the par five finishing holes for the biggest win of her young career.

Up ahead her Canterbury team mate Julianna Hung was charging up the leader board and putting some real pressure on Cassidy for second place. She posted eight under in the clubhouse sharing second place momentarily before Cassidy finished a good week birdieing the last to finish on nine under par, relegating Hung to a commendable third.

Garvey was beaming following her wire to wire win.

"I was hitting a lot of fairways today and putting myself in good spots to attack the pins, which meant I didnt have to do too much with my putter," said Garvey

"It was good to get a birdie on 15, Chantelle made bogey so it was a two-shot swing which was good after making back to back bogeys. I dont really think I sealed it till the 16th when I put it close there."

When asked about the key to this week, Garvey was quick to pay credit to new found consistency.

"Im getting a lot more consistent my dispersion has come in a lot in the past year and I have been working hard on the mental part of the game to not be afraid of getting low scores."

"Its amazing, words cant describe how good it feels to get the job done this week. To win one of the biggest events in New Zealand is awesome."

Garvey was looking forward to getting in touch with her parents and to what was ahead in the coming months.

"My parents are always there for the support and I cant wait to call them, they will be stoked for me."

"Im heading over to aussie in a couple of weeks for the Aussie Juniors so it would be nice to perform well there and for the New Zealand team in the Queen Sirikit in May. Of course, I also cant wait for the New Zealand Amateur at Russley in Christchurch, it would be awesome to do the double."

In the meantime Garvey can bask in the glory of a fantastic week, where she led from start to finish putting her name alongside the likes of Lynnette Brooky, Sharon Ahn and Lydia Ko as winners of the New Zealand Womens Stroke Play Championship.

2017 New Zealand Womens Stroke Play Championship

Hastings Golf Club

23-26 March

Par 74

Final Scores

281 Amelia Garvey (Kaiapoi) 73 67 71 70

287 Chantelle Cassidy (Riverside) 74 70 69 74

288 Juliana Hung (Russley) 73 72 74 69

292 Rose Zheng (Pakuranga) 74 71 71 76

293 Brittney Dryland (Titirangi) 75 71 72 75, Alanna Campbell (Omanu) 76 67 73 77

298 Jessica Huang (Pakuranga) 75 76 72 75

300 Sato Tajima (Rotorua) 74 75 73 78, Carmen Lim (Windross Farm Golf Course) 74 74 74 78

303 Caryn Khoo (Pakuranga) 75 81 73 74, Siyi Keh (Pakuranga) 76 77 74 76

304 Subin Wui (Pupuke) 73 76 79 76

305 Zoann Huang (St. Andrews of Hamilton (Hamilton)) 79 79 76 71, Vivian Lu (Royal Auckland) 75 77 77 76

306 Olive Tapu (Christchurch) 77 79 77 73

307 Darae Chung (Shandon) 80 74 79 74

308 Tessa Jane McDonald (Poverty Bay) 79 77 74 78

310 Fiona Xu (Pakuranga) 78 78 76 78

312 Sara Deam U25 (Napier Inc.) 76 79 78 79

313 Erika Cui (Boulcott's Farm Heritage) 76 78 81 78

314 Miree Jung (Titirangi) 76 83 80 75

315 Shontalia William (Boulcott's Farm Heritage) 83 77 78 77

317 Yoonjeong Huh (Gulf Harbour Country Club) 75 83 77 82

318 Caitlin Maurice (Omokoroa) 84 75 80 79, Tara Raj (Wanganui) 79 79 81 79

324 Mimi Guo (Royal Auckland) 84 76 83 81

330 Jasmine Rou (Russley) 85 82 82 81

331 Shardae Bulkeley (Mangawhai) 89 81 85 76, Rachel Eder (Clearwater) 84 84 80 83

333 Mary Chen (Remuera) 86 81 80 86

341 Mudra Lakhani (Manawatu) 89 83 80 89

346 Lily Griffin (Manawatu) 86 89 87 84

352 Josephine Kerr (Poverty Bay) 82 87 91 92

- This story has been automatically published using a media release from Golf NZ