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Catriona Matthew
Golf Professional
Born: 25th August 1969, North Berwick
![[Catriona Matthew]](images/matthew.jpg)
LPGA Hawaiian Classic 2001
© Digitalsport UK
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![[18th East Course]](images/glen_t.jpg)
18th East Course, North Berwick
© Digitalsport UK
West Links
East Course
Gullane
Muirfield
Dunbar
Musselburgh
![[Muirfield Clubhouse]](images/muirfield_1.jpg)
Muirfield Clubhouse
© Digitalsport UK
Amateur Record
Scottish Girls' Championship:1986
Curtis Cup Team :1990,1992,1994
Scottish Ladies'Amateur :1991,1993,1994
Rochampton Gold Cup :1989
Helen Holm Trophy :1990
Welsh Women's Open :1992
St. Rule Trophy :1993
Ness Trophy :1993
British Ladies Amateur :1993
Spanish Ladies' Championship :1993
Vagliano Team Trophy :1989, 1991, 1993
Espirito Santo World Team Championship :1992
European Ladies Team :1989, 1991
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Matthew makes Solheim Cup Team debut in Ohio
By
Douglas Seaton
North Berwick Factfile
CATRIONA MATTHEW (nee Lambert) lived with her parents in Marmion Road and attended the North Berwick High School, before qualifying as an accountant at Stirling University.
She later wrote, 'As a girl growing up in North Berwick it was natural I should also want to play golf. I was lucky there was a nine-hole children's course where I could learn to play; I think the longest hole was 150 yards. That was a wonderful place to start. They ran five tournaments each summer for under-10s and under-14s. There would be 100 or so boys and girls playing together and it was an enjoyable way to introduce youngsters to the game.'
While a student, Catriona worked on the Children's Course collecting the ticket money and in the evening she would stand by the March Dyke, a stone wall crossing the 3rd and 16th fairways on the West Links, checking if the passing golfers had paid their green fees - just like the 'Highway Patrol'.
Matthew became the first Scot to win on home soil in over a decade at the WPGA Championship of Europe.
Catriona was a former Scottish Girls champion, Scottish under-21 champion, three times Scottish Amateur Champion, and winner of the British Women's Amateur title in 1993. Matthew also played in three Curtis Cup teams before turning professional in 1994.
Golf is not the only sport she excels. Catriona played badminton for Scotland in 1985 in the European Championship for the under-18s.
Catriona is known to her fellow professionals as 'Beany', a name she was given at school. She married Graeme Matthew from Melrose, a former Scottish Boys Champion and on qualifying for the US LPGA tour in 1995, Graeme caddied for her during the first two years. Throughout Catriona's career she has been coached by the Glenbervie professional, John Chillas.
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Catriona Matthew defeated her fellow Curtis Cup and Vagliano team member Kirsty Speak in the final of the British Ladies Amateur Championship at Royal Lytham and St. Annes in 1993.
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Her first international victory came in the Australian Women's Open at the Yara Yara course in Melbourne on 10th November 1996. During the final round she carded a flawless 69, to win by three strokes from the home favourite Karrie Web (70). Matthew finished with a nine-under-par total of 283 and was sprayed with champagne on the home green by fellow Scot Kathryn Marshall (77) who finished in joint fifth place. Sweden's Liselotte Neumann (72) was third on 287.
In August 1998, she won the McDonald's WPGA Championship of Europe on the King's Course at Gleneagles. For the first time her husband relinquished the caddying duties, and Andy Dearden from Manchester took over.
During the Championship of Europe, 28 year old Matthew, led from the first round, closing with a 69 for a 12 under-par total of 276, five shots clear of playing partner Laura Davies (72) and defending champion from Sweden, Helen Alfredsson (71). As Catriona lifted the £45,000 winners cheque, she said "I did get nervous towards the end, but the crowd were fantastic. They cheered me onto every green."
On 18th September 1998, Matthew made her debut in the European Solheim Cup team at Muirfield Village in Ohio, which the USA won 16-12. In 1999, her husband Graeme returned to caddie for her and at the first major of the year, the Nabisco Dinah Shore, she finished seventh. At the U.S. Women's Open in June she finished top Briton in eighth place at Old Waverly, West Point, Mississippi. In the final major of the 1999 LPGA season, Catriona finished fifth in the Du Maurier Classic, played at Priddis Green in Calgary, Canada.
In 2000, she competed in 28 events and posted seven top-10 finishes, including fifth at the season-opening The Office Depot and Australian Ladies Masters. Catriona, twice runner-up in tour events crossed the $1 million mark in career earnings on July 16 2001 after a tie for 10th place at the Japan Airlines Big Apple Classic.
Matthew won her first US LPGA tour event, the Cup Noodles Hawaiian Ladies' Open on 18th February 2001 at Kapolei, by adding a level par 72 to opening rounds of 67 and 71 for a six-under-par total 210 and a three-shot victory. Playing in tough windy conditions Matthew led by two at the start of the final round, but was tied with her playing partner US Solheim Cup player Nancy Scranton with nine to play. But while Matthew held her nerve over the closing stretch with an eagle at the 11th, Scranton finished double-bogey, bogey. In the end it was Sweden's world No.2 Annika Sorenstam who snatched second place after a 70 for a three-under 213, while Scranton's 74 left her having to settle for share of third with fellow American's Danielle Ammaccapane (69) and Wendy Ward (73) on 214. Matthew was presented with a cheque for £77,600 and a Rolex watch that is part of the trappings for a first-time tour winner.
In 2002, Matthew was controversially left out of the Solheim Cup team by Dale Reid when Europe was defeated by the United States in Minnesota. In 2003 Matthew gained one of captain Catrin Nilsmark's wild card picks when the Solheim Cup was played at the Barseback Golf and Country Club, Malmo in Sweden. Catriona played in all five matches, and had the honour of securing the wining point for Europe when Rosie Jones conceded her five-foot birdie putt on the seventeenth. This was only the third triumph for Europe in this event and its biggest ever victory, seventeen-and-a-half points, to ten-and-a-half.
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Catronia had to wait another three years before her next LPGA victory at the first extra hole of a sudden death play-off in the Wendy's Championship for Children, played at the Tartan Fields golf club in Dublin, Ohio on 22nd August 2004.
In the final round Matthew had a three shot deficit with six holes to play but birdied two of her final four holes for a closing round 68, four under par, which matched defending champion Hee Won-Han's total of 278 to force a play off. This was the first play-off Matthew had been in and her par at the first extra hole was good enough to eclipse her opponent's bogey on a day when Catriona didn't drop a single shot. 72-67-71-68=278 (-10). Mexico's Lorena Ochoa was third, one shot back on 279, while the fourteen year old Korean-American Michelle Wie finished tied for 6th place on 282.
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![[Wendy's Championship]](images/matthew_1.jpg)
Wendy's Championship
Dublin, Ohio, August 2004
© Getty Images
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In 2005, she made her third appearance in the European Solheim Cup team at Crooked Stick, Carmel, Indiana, where the USA triumphed fifteen-and-a half-points to twelve-and-a half points for Europe. In 2006, Catriona was confirmed as the best female golfer in the UK when she was ranked 19th in the first official women's world golf rankings.
In August 2007, Matthew claimed her fifth worldwide victory when she won the Scandinavian TPC, at Barseback Golf and Country Club in Malmo, Sweden. Catriona carded a final round 68 to finish on nine-under-par 279, and a three stroke victory over American Laura Diaz and Sweden's Sophie Gustafson. Defending champion Annika Sorenstam who hosted the event, shot a four-under-par 68 to finish in ninth place on level par. Matthew who took six months off to have baby Katie on 18th December said she was a little bit shaky on 10 and pushed my second shot but the birdies on 12 and 13 settled me down and I had good chances coming in. Catronia Matthew is an honorary life member of both North Berwick and Gullane Ladies Golf Club.
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Scandinavian TPC Hosted By Annika, Barseback Golf and Country Club, Malmo, Sweden -
August 12th 2007
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Copyright © Douglas Seaton 2007, All Rights Reserved.
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![[Catriona Matthew]](images/matthew_3.jpg)
![[Catriona Matthew]](images/matthew_2.jpg)