Bransford Golf Club will be treading new ground as on January 1, 2012, when their new club captain takes the helm.

The Brook Bank House Hotel course will be among the first in England to appoint a woman as overall club captain after Lesley Lammas was elected to the prestigious position following the recent merger of the English Golf Union and English Women’s Golf Association.

The proposal to merge the two organisations into one national governing body, England Golf, was ratified on November 16 and comes into effect on New Year’s Day 2012.

Bransford Golf Club manager Vicky Young said: “We have recently had our captain for 2012 ratified and, for the first in the history of golf due to the EGU merger it will be a lady.

“We are almost certain we are the first club in the county to have a lady as club captain.

Lammas, who lives in Bromsgrove, first became a member at Bransford in 2001, before joining the ladies’ committee in 2004 and then going on to be ladies captain later the same year.

She was the golf club’s treasurer for three years before being asked to take on the overall club captaincy as of January 2012.

Having started on a handicap of 42 when she took up golf in 2000, Lammas, who also reached final England trials as a netball player, has improved her golf over the last decade and now plays off 11.

A two-time winner of the handicap trophy as well as the overall ladies’ championship, Lammas’ targets for her year in office inculde maintaining a happy, friendly environment that is welcoming all new members as well as supporting the new social committee to raise the off-course side of the club.

Her chosen charity for the year will be St Richard’s Hospice, while she also plans to try and cut her handicap so she can get into single figures.

The England Golf merger proposal was approved by 86 per cent of the voting members of the EGU and by 100 per cent of the voting members of the EWGA.

Both organisations had to approve the proposal by a majority of at least 75 per cent for it to be successful.