Around 18 months ago, Louise Duncan, then 21 and a golf scholar at Stirling University, was in two minds about what she should do next. Since her degree at Stirling was in Sports Studies, she had a few thoughts on that front, while she also fancied the idea of being a paramedic.
Then, in June of 2021, her golf clubs did a bit of talking. First, she came from nowhere to win the Women’s British Amateur championship at Barassie and with it a place in the AIG British Women’s Open at Carnoustie. There, on the toughest Open championship venue of them all, she had rounds of 68, 73 and 68, to be trailing Anna Nordqvist and Nanna Koertz Madsen by a mere two shots going into the final round.
Louise Duncan tees off 18 during the Celebration of Champions prior to The 150th Open at St Andrews
(Image credit: Getty Images)
That was when the penny dropped. Duncan began to think that a career as a professional was not out of the question. “I could have won that week,” she said in our chat at the recent opening of the Stephen Gallacher Foundation Centre of Excellence at the Kingsfield Golf Centre.
Though two bogies around the turn marred her card on the Sunday at Carnoustie, she still contrived to finish in a share of tenth place which, for an amateur playing in her first major, was mighty impressive. Afterwards, she admitted to having felt “a bag of nerves” on the first tee but, such were the other 70 shots that she very quickly concluded that they were good nerves rather than bad.
Duncan was not the only Stirling University golfer to stand out on the amateur scene in 2021. Under the watchful of Dean Robertson, the Stirling University coach and a former Italian Open champion, Chloe Goadby put the finishing touches to a first-class honours degree before winning the Scottish Women’s championship at Gullane. Duncan’s British Amateur triumph came next, and then there was that never-to-be-forgotten week at the men’s Amateur at Nairn. Laird Shepherd, who had graduated shortly before, made that crazy comeback from eight down after 17 holes of the morning lap of the final to defeat Monty Scowsill at the second extra hole in the afternoon.
Hannah Darling and Louise Duncan, Curtis Cup at Merion Golf Club, June 2022
(Image credit: Getty Images)
It is not too difficult to get across how much Duncan, who played all her early golf at West Kilbride, relished her time at Stirling. “I never really thought of going to an American college because I wanted to stay at…
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