Pia Babnik

Babnik is chasing an R&A double: she is bidding to add the AIG Women’s Open title to the R&A Girls’ Amateur she won in 2019.

She also won that year’s Helen Holm Scottish Open and was low individual in the European Ladies Team Championship. Babnik, who began playing golf as a three-year-old, decided against going down the conventional route of college golf and turned professional in 2019 having reached fifth on the World Amateur Golf Ranking and attaining a handicap of plus seven.

The decision paid dividends in 2021 when she won twice on the Ladies European Tour, with victories in the Jabra Ladies Open and Aramco Team Series – Jeddah. Among her many amateur achievements is a ten-under 58 in the 2018 Trnovo Masters.