FROM the island that brought you Heather Watson and Alice Loveridge, here comes another starlet… Aimee Ponte.

I’d heard the whispers, that here was a special talent, and having watched every shot of her classic 18-hole semi-final victory over Jan Chamberlain, the talk was not in the slightest exaggerated.

This is a young sportswoman who appears every bit as talented in her own sport as Loveridge is in the table tennis sphere and, just perhaps, Watson on the tennis courts.

Golf has waited a long, long time to find a star to make the back pages and excite in the manner of its best all-time non-professional, and perhaps it is no coincidence that the Year 8 St Sampson’s High schoolgirl has learned much of her art from the master himself, Bobby Eggo.

There is more than a touch of Eggo in her stance and it is a credit to him that by taking on her bag duties, he is playing a guiding role in the emergence of a player who, given her obvious potential, needs careful nurturing.

The manner in which she strikes the ball, be it with driver, fairway wood, short iron or putter, typifies someone who has every shot in the locker and, on Wednesday’s evidence, appears nerveless.

She obviously knows how to win and if she needed any tips as to how to lose, she should look no further than the woman she toppled in the semi-finals.

The grace and dignity Chamberlain displayed both under Ponte’s growing pressure and after defeat was confirmed on the final green, was an example to all, not that golf has a problem with these matters.

Chamberlain ran into something very special.
Last week’s Inside Track seems to have whipped up a bit of a storm within the Guernsey cricket management and, in particular, with manager Dave Hearse.

My comments were, I gather, badly timed, unsupportive of the team and wrong on the question of who makes the big decisions on the pitch.

The prickly response from the passionate Hearse was wholly expected from yours truly but, he should remember, it is only an opinion and, judging by email responses to the This is Guernsey website, in some ways misinterpreted.

A week on from the World Cricket League tournament, my opinion is that his team deserves much credit for clinching promotion and that it took a fairly accomplished side [Bahrain] to stop them winning the Division Seven trophy. Well done, lads.

At no time did I suggest any of the players representing Guernsey was not worthy of selection.

In fact, I wrote: ‘picking the kids is borne out of necessity and cannot be criticised’.

I also wrote that the side showed signs of promise but was largely inexperienced with several ‘novices’ who have not yet achieved anything of note in the game. Perhaps, the word ‘international’ should have prefixed the word novice.

But you can’t get away from the fact that those ‘novices’, several of whom turnout for my own club, Cobo, are still learning the game.

In time, Blane Queripel, Kris Moherndl, Ben Ferbrache and Jamie Nussbaumer will develop into very good and experienced international cricketers, but at  present they are not the finished article, and I cannot see how anyone can possibly argue that they are.

But the rich promise is there and to be categorised as such, is not that praise in itself?

As for where the captain bats in the order, is a point that virtually every cricket fan I speak to and my sports desk cricketing colleagues, were questioning.

And, lo and behold, by the time last Saturday’s offending comment piece appeared, the powermakers in the Guernsey set-up had pushed him up the order to four, with only positive results.