MY first experience of the Curtis Cup was in June 1968. I was 19 at the time and it seemed the thing to do, given that the matches were sort of up the road, at Newcastle.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't hugely interested in the event, despite the presence in the GB and Ireland team of such great names as Belle Robertson and, of course, Vivien Saunders, who was to turn professional the following year. And I only went on the Saturday, probably because I didn't want to take time off work.

My main reason for being there was to be with my Donabate clubmate, Vivienne Singleton, whom I later beat in the final of the Irish Championship at Lahinch in 1974.

Despite having been runner-up in the Irish Championship earlier that year, I didn't really know many people in golf at that time. And I certainly knew nothing about the American players.

Looking back on it, I suppose it would be nice to say that the sight of those teams, who started the second day on level terms and were battling for one of golf's great trophies, fired me to be part of it all. But it wasn't like that. I was no more than a moderately interested spectator.

The Curtis Cup didn't even enter my thoughts when I made the Vagliano Trophy team in 1969, after winning the Irish Championship at Ballybunion. I was conscious that there were up to 12 players on the Vagliano team at that stage, whereas only the elite eight got into the Curtis Cup.

But everything was to change in 1970, when I went to Sunningdale Old Course for the Curtis Cup trials. That was a huge thing for me at that stage of my career. There was a total of 15 of us there, playing three rounds of three-balls in round robin competition.

Elaine Bradshaw was also there and I viewed her as the senior Irish challenger for a place in the side. She had beaten me in my first Irish final at Lahinch two years previously and had also been in the '69 Vagliano team. If only one Irish player was going to be in the team, it had to be Elaine, not me.

The selection procedure was that four players qualified automatically from the trials while the other four were picked. If I remember correctly, Ann Irvin missed it through illness and by the Thursday afternoon - in other words with one day to spare - Belle (Robertson) and myself had qualified. She was on 21 points and I was on 19. No matter what combinations won or lost the following day, nobody could catch us.

All of which came as a total surprise to me. I suppose the fact that I really didn't have any great expectations, lessened the pressure. And being my first time on the course meant I had no hang-ups about it. In fact I had never been to that part of England before: everything was totally new.

After a little while there, however, the significance of it all began to seep in. There was a trip to the States at stake and as it happened, Dinah Oxley also got one of the automatic places and we went on to form the number one foursomes partnership in the side at Brae Burn, winning on the first day and then being beaten on day two.

But the most profound influence on my golfing career from then on was by Belle, right up to the time of our last Curtis Cup appearance in 1986, as members of the team which made history by winning at Prairie Dunes.

Because of those trials, going back to Sunningdale always held a great appeal for me. The course seemed to suit my golf and I was fortunate in having further success there in the Sunningdale Foursomes in which I partnered Maureen Madill to three finals, one of which we won in 1984.

That was a memorable year in that I went to Sunningdale after winning the Avia Foursomes, with Belle, the previous week. So, the Avia with Belle and the Sunningdale with Maureen were two special wins with two special people.

On the way to nine successive Curtis Cup appearances, there were times when I had to battle hard to make the side. Which was quite a contrast to the first occasion, when it all seemed to fall into my lap during those trials at Sunningdale. And only a week before my 21st birthday.