Marise stepping into the unknown ahead of Lombard final

Leeds Golf Centre amateur Marise Richfield will be treading new ground when she tees off in the WPGA Lombard Trophy Final in Portugal.

The Wetherby-based player will team up with WPGA Professional Ellie Robinson for the National Pro-Am Championship to be held in the Algarve

They qualified for the event with a joint second placed fish at the Regional Final at Cheshire’s Dunham Forest Golf Club in July.

Now the Yorkshire duo will be aiming to win the £7,800 Coca-Cola and Pestana Resorts supported, showpiece which is being held at the Vila Sol resort between September 20-21.

Robinson finished second in the final two years ago when she partnered Gill Swaby-Ward.

But for Richfield, who has been a member at Leeds Golf Centre for 20 years, it will be the first time she has played golf in a foreign country.

“I’m thrilled, as I’ve never played abroad so it’ll be a first for me,” she said.

“It’s new territory, I know a lot of women players do go abroad and are quite used to it.”

But Richfield knows she will be in safe hands with Robinson, an England girls and ladies squad member, who is focused on growing the game of golf to women and girls

“I throughly enjoyed the regional finals, I want us to have fun and not have too many expectations,” said Richfield, who plays off a handicap of 18.

“But Ellie has clearly played this event before and finished second so she has a good track record.”

Richfield says the Leeds Golf Centre venue has been on the up in recent years.

“We have a good strong ladies section but there have been a lot of changes to the course because the club was taken over a few years ago by different owners who upgraded the course and made it more challenging,” she explained.

“That was good, we all struggled with handicaps while we got used to it, but it did stand us in good stead for playing other courses.

“It was probably relatively easy before, but now it’s much more challenging."