SHE ended her junior career on a national high – now North Yorkshire’s irons-maiden, Charlotte Austwick, is aiming for an arduous winter of training to prepare for a major impact in her debut senior season.

Soon to turn 18, Austwick is set upon continuing to enjoy a successful career in golf, but she realises that lofted ambition will not be accomplished unless she puts in the hard yards over the winter in both her studies and in further honing her game.

The Tadcaster teenager is preparing for her second year of study for ‘A’ levels in psychology, mathematics, business and physical education. Success in those will then help her in the next stage of what she hopes will prove a senior golfing career as flourishing as her junior days have been since she took up her first club barely six years ago.

If she gets the required grades she will go to university and that is where she next hopes to apply her golfing talents.

“I would love to make the British Universities’ women’s golf team,” said the youngster, who is now a member of both Pike Hills Golf Club and Sandburn Hall GC.

“That’s my next big aim, and after hopefully graduating, I would love to give playing golf on the circuit a real good go.

“But before all that can happen, it all depends, of course, on doing well in my studies, which I will have to concentrate on as much as my golf, especially over this coming winter.”

Austwick’s origins in the game came about at the now defunct Cocksford GC, which was only about five minutes away from her home in Tadcaster.

As an eager 11-year-old she tagged on to her elder brother John, who, after playing squash at a decent level, wanted to try his hand at golf.

Soon sister was eclipsing brother. She recalled: “The professional at Cocksford, Graham Thompson, said I was hitting the ball well and that gave me the confidence to keep going.”

She and John then joined Cobble Hall at Leeds, ostensibly because it was a bigger Union and offered more scope to play. But Austwick found her Leeds experience to be too male-dominated and never offered enough encouragement for juniors.

After playing at Pike Hills GC in a junior open event she explained: “I really enjoyed it there and when my dad’s job as a fire officer changed area it was better that we headed from Tadcaster towards York and North Yorkshire, so I joined Pike.

“The club have looked after me so well ever since. They actively encourage juniors and I was soon able to play with some of the top amateur players there like Martin Brown, who has since become York Open champion several times.

“It’s often the case that girls have to play in events dominated by lads, but I’ve had no problem with that and at Pike Hills there was plenty of scope to play.”

Her skill sharpened by the increased competition, Austwick’s ascent gathered pace.

She won the Moortown GC Junior Masters at the age of just 12 as well as the Coxford GC junior crown in her first year as a member before the club eventually closed down.

Soon she was selected for training with the Yorkshire girls’ squad, beginning a training link-up with Steve Robinson, one of the country’s top-rated coaches.

She went on to captain the youth team and, in 2007, she was crowned the Pike Hills GC club champion, the first of three successive club crowns.

Last year, Austwick became the first girl in the 16-year history of the York Union of Golf Clubs to capture the York Junior Championship.

Still the success came and after leading the Yorkshire girls’ team to triumph in the Northern Championships, Austwick signed off her junior days with national glory.

Appearing in the England girls’ championship at North Wiltshire, she was lying 33rd after the first of two qualifying stroke-play rounds before the event then advanced into knockout match-play for the leading 32 players. She completed her second round with an improved score only for the rest of the round to be abandoned by a deluge which flooded the greens.

That left Austwick marooned in 33rd place and so she advanced into the tournament’s second flight.

However, refusing to be daunted by that setback she negotiated four hectic ties before winning the final against Brighton’s Tiffany Hewetson at the second hole of a dramatic play-off.

She came home to North Yorkshire with a national crown. It was the perfect send-off to her junior career.

But now the intense work starts, as she readily acknowledged.

Besides stepping up her physical fitness with sessions provided by Tadcaster Leisure Centre and working closer with physiotherapist Lynn Booth, she will continue to be coached by Robinson at Sandburn Hall, where he is the head professional running his own esteemed academy while coaching several county and national squads.

“I will be working hard with Steve, especially improving on my short game as well as figuring how to play a round of golf properly,” she said.

“By that I mean working out the right strategy say when you are approaching the closing holes of your round with a good score and you want to make sure you don’t blow your advantage.

“It’s more about seeing a round out right and I need to be able to work on that more.”

Austwick is determined to be at her most ready when her first senior season starts in earnest next spring.

Given the approach she has enjoyed so far in her junior campaign, it could be the start of an exciting new chapter.