Castletown Golf Links hosted the Junior Island Golf Championships on Sunday.

The 2025 winner of the girls event, Gigi Fisk had home advantage but was up against Eva Moore from Peel, the under-16s island hockey captain.

The latter had played the course on the previous weekend in the Norma Loundes Memorial Open.

That had attracted a strong field of 35 women from across the island and Eva played excellently to finish second to Gigi’s mother Linda who is Castletown’s Golfer of the Year 2025.

The weather on Sunday for the Junior Championship was challenging. Gigi, who is the youngest winner of the Castletown Cup, coped better in the blustery, cold conditions.

It was a strokeplay medal event and Eva took an early lead of four shots, but two poor holes brought Gigi back into contention. At the turn, the latter was leading by three strokes.

This quickly increased to seven shots and, as their match progressed, Gigi pulled ahead by 12 strokes with only three holes to play. With a lovely par, there was a four-shot swing in Eva’s favour on the short 16th.

Another super par from Eva and a further three shots went her way on the 17th. The gap was now down to five strokes and, as we know, anything can happen on the ‘un-four-gettable' 18th.

But Gigi held her nerve and putted out for a final bogey, whereas Eva went for broke but ended with a nasty nine. So, the final result was a win by nine strokes for Gigi.

Had it been based on nett scores, this would have been reduced to seven after application of their respective handicaps.

Observers all agreed that the match had been played in a competitive and friendly manner and both girls showed plenty of promise for their future in island golf.

MALCOLM LAMBERT

- A report from the boys’ championship will hopefully appear separately.