Manon Petitcolas will be the number one seed for the match play stage of the Girls’ Amateur Championship after winning the stroke play qualifying at Alwoodley.

The 16-year-old from France added a three-under 69 to her opening 70 for a five-under aggregate and shared the top spot with Sweden’s Ebba Lundqvist. Petitcolas took the medalist honors by virtue of her better second-round score.

At the Boys’ Amateur Championship at nearby Moortown, Denmark’s Mads Heller finished top of the stroke play standings with a three-under total.

That was the same mark as Finland’s Leevi Hellberg, but Heller claimed leading qualifier status thanks to a second-round 70 versus Hellberg’s 71.

After 144 leading players from across the world started out at both championships, the top 64 match play stages commence tomorrow at both Yorkshire venues.

Despite leaking a shot on the opening hole, Petitcolas, who is making her debut in the Girls’ Amateur, responded with purpose, and four birdies in six holes from the 3rd fortified her position in the upper reaches of the leaderboard.

A fine approach into the par-5 18th set up an eagle opportunity from distance, but Petitcolas was more than happy to finish with a birdie.

Lundqvist, another debutant in the Championship, confirmed her passage through to the knockout phase with a steady one-under 71 for her five-under tally.

Manon Petitcolas

The 18-year-old, who goes to the same Swedish school of sporting excellence that helped develop Ryder Cup star Ludvig Aberg and Solheim Cup player Maja Stark, illuminated her day with a nicely flighted tee-shot into the short 7th, which led to a birdie from five feet.

Shrewsbury’s Isla McDonald-O’Brien produced one of the best rounds of the day to progress comfortably. The 17-year-old, beaten in the semi-finals of the Girls’ Amateur Championship last season, pieced together a neatly assembled, bogey-free four-under 68 for a three-under aggregate.

France’s Sara Brentcheneff, the highest-placed player on the World Amateur Golf Ranking® (WAGR®), qualified with ease on a two-under total alongside Italy’s Guia Vittoria Acutis, who has already tasted victory in England this month having won the English Girls’ Under-16 Championship.

The Girls' Amateur Champion this week gains exemptions into Final Qualifying for the AIG Women’s Open, The R&A Women’s Amateur Championship, the US Girls’ Junior Championship and, by tradition, an invitation to compete at the Augusta National Women's Amateur Championship.