HAMPSHIRE'S English champion Kerry Smith has crowned a superb season by winning the English Ladies Golf Association's Order of Merit for the first time.

"This caps a fantastic year," said the 32-year-old from Waterlooville, who produced a series of top-notch performances to become England's number one golfer. Kerry claimed the biggest win of her career so far when she became English champion - at her ninth attempt in May.

"It was a dream come true," she beamed.

During the year she was also runner-up in the English Mid-Amateur, third in the English Strokeplay, third in the Sherry Cup in Spain and the first player to win the South East Championship four times.

Ironically, though, she missed out on making it a hat-trick of Hampshire Championship wins when she lost out to Elizabeth Bennett in the semi-finals at Brokenhurst Manor in early summer.

Even so, she admitted: "It has definitely been my best-ever year. My all-round game has never been better.

"Winning the Order of Merit reflects on everything I have done throughout the year," said the 32-year-old player, who is a long established England international and a former Curtis Cup campaigner.

Smith, a committed amateur who plays off plus-two at the Waterlooville Golf Club where she also works, is a member of the ELGA's elite performance squad and of the LGU's Great Britain and Ireland training squad. She plans a busy winter preparing for next season when her sights are set on another big title.

Runner-up in the Order of Merit was last year's winner, Emma Duggleby of Malton & Norton, Yorkshire. Shelley McKevitt (Reading, Berks) was third. Both women played in the 2004 Curtis Cup team.