Catriona Isobel Matthew
25 August 1969 –
Professional Golfer
Catriona Isobel Matthew (née Lambert) MBE is a Scottish professional golfer who plays mainly on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour and is also a member of the Ladies European Tour.
Catriona Lambert was born in Edinburgh, and grew up in North Berwick. She learned to play golf on the Children's Course and North Berwick West Links in the town. She had a successful junior and amateur career. She graduated from the University of Stirling in 1992 having studied accountancy, this being one of a few British universities offering golf scholarships.
Matthew qualified for the LPGA Tour by tying for fifth at the 1994 LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament to earn exempt status for the 1995 season. She soon established herself on the Tour, and her best seasons were 2001 and 2005, when she finished tenth on the money list.
Matthew also qualified for the Ladies European Tour in 1995 and plays several events on that tour each season. She won her maiden professional tournament at the Holden Women's Australian Open in 1996. She won the 1998 McDonald's WPGA Championship on the Ladies European Tour. She was a member of the 1998 Solheim Cup Team and first reserve for the 2000 matches held in her native Scotland. When Helen Alfredsson hurt her wrist she was called into the team but Alfredsson recovered and Matthew did not play. She was somewhat controversially left out of the 2002 Solheim Cup team but was a captain's pick for the 2003 team, gaining the Cup winning point. She was a captain's pick for the 2005 team as well. She qualified outright for the 2007, 2009 and 2011 Solheim Cup teams.
She teamed with Janice Moodie to represent Scotland at the 2005 and 2006 Women’s World Cup of Golf and was a member of the victorious International team captained by Annika Sörenstam in the inaugural Lexus Cup.
She won the 2007 Scandinavian TPC hosted by Annika.
In January 2009, she won the inaugural HSBC LPGA Brasil Cup 2009, an unofficial LPGA event with a field of 14 LPGA players and a Brazilian national amateur. Matthew was five months pregnant with her second child at the time of the victory.
On 2 August 2009 at Royal Lytham & St Annes, Matthew won the Ricoh Women's British Open with a final score of 3-under-par over second place finisher Karrie Webb. It was her first win in a major tournament. The victory came 11 weeks after she gave birth to her second daughter, Sophie. She was the first player from Scotland to win a women's major golf tournament.
On 13 November 2011, Matthew won her fourth LPGA title at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Mexico.
Matthew was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours.
To make your own nomination download the nomination form here