Blooming English Lily

Lily May Humphreys, who is set to be the first new English player to make the European Junior Solheim Cup team since Georgia Hall and Bronte Law in 2013, is 17 years of age and has a handicap – wait for it – of plus-5.7. As for what she likes to be called, it is “Lily” pure and simple. She says that her parents, Rob and Sue, sometimes call her Lily May, “but that only happens when I’m in trouble, usually for leaving my clothes all over the place.”

Lily’s progress has been dynamic. In 2017, she knew nothing of the qualifying events for the Junior Solheim Cup until after the team had been picked, which wasn’t a lot of use. Since then, she has more than made up for lost time and, this year alone, has won three prominent European amateur tournaments in the Irish and Welsh Women’s Stroke Play championships and the Annika Invitational Europe. In the Annika Invitational, arguably the most prestigious European junior event of them all, she had scores of 69, 68 and 70 (12-under par) to beat five players in the top 100 on the women’s World A...