CHORLEY teenager Emily Taylor has scored the biggest win of her fledgling golfing career by sweeping to the Irish Women’s Open Amateur Championship by three strokes at The Island in County Dublin.

After a very windy first day, the England girl international who plays at Royal Lytham & St Annes who finished fifth in the recent English Women’s Amateur Championship at Royal Birkdale, started the third and final round a shot behind leader Gillian O’Leary from Cork.

But O’Leary took 80 shots for a total of 14-over-par 236 and 17-year-old Taylor, with a 76, was able to make up the leeway and finish three shots ahead of joint runners-up Mary Dowling, from New Ross, a past Irish matchplay champion.

The former St Michael’s High School student completed victory by rolling in a 12-foot putt on the final hole at The Island to record her two-over-par round.

Taylor, a former member of Chorley Golf Club, is widely regarded as one of the best young golfers in Lancashire.

In 2009, she became the youngest winner of the Lancashire Women’s Championship, when she was just 14.

She is now going for a big strokeplay double at St Andrews this weekend in the St Rule Trophy – won in the 1990s by Annika Sorenstam – over the New and Old Courses.

Pleasington duo Nikki Foster and Brogan Townend also compete at St Andrews.