“The first nine was tight, but I won three in a row and put all the pressure on Lisa,” said Raad. “I wasn’t really focusing on her too much. I think I was just playing really good positional golf and putting myself in good places. I think it was unfortunate for her that she missed a lot of putts today, and I seemed to two-putt everywhere, so I just kept that going.”

Raad took the 19th, 25th, and 27th to turn 5-up, and when she won on the 29th hole, the writing was on the wall, and Raad never wavered in what she did all day. “I think I was just trying to do what I was doing the whole day: just get from tee to fairway, fairway to green, and two-putt,” she said. “It was working for me in the morning, so I just tried to keep it going.

“I tried to tell myself before we started that I had a long day today, and I wasn’t going to get too excited about it or emotional today because there were a lot of holes to play. I think that helped.

“I didn’t change much for the final round. I think towards the end, I was trying to play a lot safer, trying to avoid any big mistakes.

“I’ve learned to keep calm from my experience of past tournaments. It helps not to get too excited if you hit a good shot or a bad shot. I just stay positive, because there’s a lot of golf to be played.”

It all worked perfectly as she won the 30th hole to seal the deal, despite what had been a patchy performance in the stroke play event, which culled the field to the 32 championship and 32 flight division players for the knockout rounds of the Championship.

Raad admitted that since she triumphed in the Africa Amateur Women’s Invitational, she hadn’t even unpacked her travel bag. “I think the stroke play was kind of a warm-up for me,” she said. “I hadn’t played much golf before coming here, but I found some momentum in my swing and my putting, and I found a rhythm that worked.”

It’s another impressive notch on her belt for Raad, and now she can gear up for the next big step in her life: “My goal is now to focus on my school,” she said. “I’m pretty happy with how I’ve done golf-wise, and I’m looking forward to going to the United States and studying there.”

South African-born Samuels, who emigrated to England with her family three years ago, was delighted after winning the Flight Division after a very tight match against Eastern Province’s Isabella Obray.

The 14-year-old squeaked past Obray by winning the final three holes to eke out a 1-up victory. That was after the St Francis Links member had won the first hole and never trailed in the match until Samuels made birdie on the last hole.

“It’s a great achievement, and I’m really happy with myself,” said Samuels. “This is a huge step forward for me. I’m going to celebrate with a milkshake!”

Although Obray never led by more than 2-up at any stage, the win for her on the 15th must have felt like the moment when she could have gone on and won the title. But it only served to inspire Samuels to redouble her efforts under the intense pressure.

“Honestly, I handled the by just focusing on one shot at a time, trying to hit it as good as I can,” she said. “I tried to forget about the score.”

Despite trying to blank the details of her predicament out, Samuels was clearly well aware of what she needed to do. She got within one with the win on 16 and then came the point at which she drew level for the first time in the match: “The turning point was probably on 17, the putt,” she said. “It was about 10 feet, maybe. I really had to drain that or, yeah, it would have been over.”

On 18, she needed all of her three-wood from over 200 metres out to get to the green of the par-five hole.

In the end, she had a must-make birdie to win the match, and she holed it with great confidence. “On that final putt, I was just thinking, just don’t miss,” she said. “I had to think that it was just like I practice. It’s not any different.”

Other than thinking about a milkshake, Samuels has clear goals for the future. “I want to get my swing speed up and make as many cuts as possible,” she said.