Its different for the men who use a strokeplay qualifier to just find four teams for their version of the Championship Finals. Each qualifier is for up to 10 Counties and at Senior level the six players chosen by each set of selectors play 36 holes scratch medal with every shot to count. At the Junior Boys event, each team can drop one score for each 18 holes of strokeplay so lessening the stress.

I have seen the drama that Ladies Team Golf has provided since four years ago when a miracle of scoring happened at Kenilworth when your team ( 'our' team if that is OK as Warwickshire Golf is just that to me, Warwickshire playing and hopefully winning whether its Ladies or Men) staged a comeback just as good as say the US Ryder Cup team in 1999 in the infamous match at Brookline (and without the acrimony).

If golf wants its biggest audiences, its not the Majors which top the viewing tables. Itýs the Ryder Cup and now the Soldheim Trophy which inspire millions and millions across the World to tune in, or sell out the tickets for a match. They do so simply because matchplay golf, in the context of a team championship, is sports drama of its highest kind, and spread across a number of matches. Its also just as cruel as the nerves which take over on the final nine holes of the Majors.

The biggest readership for Ladies Golf on this site is each round of the County Championships that the team makes it through, and the success (of the team) is reflected in the growth of reader numbers through the past four years.

This year, your Captain Pat Hale had a very good team, players buoyed by the achievements of reaching the finals in 2004. Winning breeds winners. There were also some new faces, including both juniors and golfers returning to top flite play.

In R1, over the very classy Malvern Golf Club course, the team came through in style, not that there weren't a few crucial matches to keep up the momentum to qualify. I hope the men who read this part of the site now realise, after four years of reporting, that the quality of golf played can be outstanding and that birdies are commonplace. Captain Pat marshaled her players superbly and so to 'home' advantage at Copt Heath for the Midland's semi-final.

Northamptonshire were the obvious barriers to going to the finals for a second year in a row, and that match (through the draw) was saved up until Day 3, after both Northants and Warwickshire had posted two wins on the first two days.

Considering the state of European tour players the week after the Ryder Cup (the Heritage at Woburn in 2004 was a perfect example when most of the winning team did not play and those who did could not make the cut), how our squad finds the energy for three days of such intense competition amazes me. There were a couple more younger golfers playing for Northants and their youth was a key to Northant's eventual win.

Girl golfers, like their Boys counterparts, now play probably too much, especially through the Summer holidays. They do get used to day in day out golf though and cannot claim the aches and pains that come with being a little older. Ask Fliss Johnson about a day when her club, her County or her Country don't call on her talents and she can probably use the fingers on one hand.

Fliss was away on ELGA International duties for the semi-finals. Her 'titleage' (more of course later) was missed. I did see a number of the younger players struggling to cope with the majestic Colt architecture of Copt Heath, in the hard and fast conditions that were around that week. Should I say 'established' players with more experience were able to take the 'rough with the smooth' sometimes better than those who can hit prodigious distances.

More and more you can see how much equipment has changed the game. Girls are taught all about big wide swing arcs with high club head speed and expect this methodology to become even more popular with Michelle Wie turning professional. The very best (such as Wie) can cope on any course. The good manage on the more open modern courses then get found out when they play on an older design, such as Copt Heath.

Having caddied for Warwickshire's best Boy Junior in the 2005 McEvoy Trophy - Andy Sullivan and he was 11th (1 under par) over the 72 holes - it would have been good to see how Fliss took on Copt Heath, let alone how she might have changed the result. She certainly showed Championship pedigree in spades when taking the English title earlier on in the season. Both Fliss and Andrew have shown the sort of talent that could make them the very best, not just good.

For Fliss, the Curtis Cup in 2006 is an obvious target and her swing has already been described as perfect for the Professional circuit (words said by one of the best teachers in golf). That route might be via the European Ladies Tour to the LPGA, or it could be direct to the only major circuit for lady professionals. The European Ladies Tour seems beset with problems and the prize money available means only really the Top 10 on that circuit can make a good living.

When Ladies Amateur golf is doing so much to try and popularise the game, with little TV and media exposure and not so much substance to professional opportunities, what makes a sport truly national and therefore global just doesn't happen. The expensive grounding for a lady professional is not there as it is for a man where circuits are aplenty as long as player can find the support to play the game.

I wasn't able to go to the Girls Championships this year (it was on the same day as the Warwickshire Seniors) and so see first hand how well the future of Warwickshire Ladies Golf is getting on but that is all too evident with those Juniors selected for both the 1sts and the 2nds. Fliss is an icon to them all, just as much as Michelle Wie, and she took her last opportunity as a Warwickshire girl golfer to put her name to the course record at Sutton Coldfield, just as had Andy Sullivan done in the Boys just a few weeks earlier.

Being able to shoot low numbers is the key for what Fliss and Andy can accomplish, if they chose to be paid to play the game. Itýs not their matchplay abilities that will earn prize money, maybe take titles and thereby give them access to team golf, thus returning them back to their 'Amateur' roots for three days in the World's spotlight.

If there is one thing that seem to have been forgotten (for whatever reason) when promoting accessibility of the game is that its competitive sports side is also in strokeplay, where sometimes 156 golfers (the full field for a championship) can all compete on the same day (or days), and more 'instant' forms of golf seems to be all too 'popular'.

Team competitions of all sorts, stableford, skills challenges, modified courses, and matchplay; all have their place BUT strokeplay is all about playing a complete round of golf, a singular skill if there ever was one. If Fliss can regularly produce cards of 66s, 65s and even lower, she will find the professional game to her liking. The same will apply to any Warwickshire Girl if they can reach the skill levels required to do what all the rest of us dream of.

There is nothing like knowing that a few pars, or bogeys, will result in a nett score in the 60s (and maybe a trophy), or the satisfaction of doing much the same so not add another point whatever to your handicap. Its the staple of weekly club member golf.

However the game is going to change through political interference (equality is a must and in no way interference - some of the rest is the manufacture of 'advisors' and ill thought out, done for self interest), how much opportunity there is for new lady golfers to play strokeplay and how Ladies professional golf can develop is a key to making sure that all the efforts put in through the 'middle' of the game are as effective as possible.