The habit is proving quite addictive for Suzie Fanagan-O'Brien, particularly when the time for the national championship comes around. And, yesterday, the defending champion showed her current well-being by taking the Leitrim Cup as leading stroke-play qualifier in the Irish Women's Amateur Close, sponsored by Lancome, over the Dufferin course at Clandeboye.

Maybe it had something to do with better familiarity of the undulating terrain, and of the gorse bushes ready to snap up any wayward shot, or the fact that the greens had been watered heavily overnight to deprive them of some of their sting, but the scores too were generally superior to the opening day's and bodes well for a competitive matchplay phase.

Still, the cut-off mark for survival proved quite high at 22over-par 168 - and three players on that score were forced to go to sudden-death for two places. As things transpired, Anita McCaw's tee-shot down the first was drawn like a magnet to one of the many gorse bushes, so regulation par fours were sufficient for Clare morris' Lillian O'Brien and Sandra Watkins, of Wooden bridge, to become the last players' to book their places in the 32player field for the knockout stages, which commence today and conclude on Saturday.

Fanagan-O'Brien had no such worries, and Watkins' reward for her extra-time endeavours was to earn a first round meeting with the champion who was the first player in the championship to post a sub-par round, adding a 72 to her opening 74 for a level par total of level par 146. It gave her three shots to spare over Strabane's Helen Jones - ironically, her playing partner for the two stroke-play rounds - to head the qualifiers.

"I hit the ball better and am quite pleased," she insisted, adding: "It was a good score, particularly since I didn't really hole a putt of any length."

Indeed, there were a number of notable efforts to follow Fanagan-O'Brien's, not least former girls' international Tricia Mangan, who improved her first round score by 10 shots to record a best-of-the-day 70; while Bronagh McCann also bettered her opening round by 10 strokes, with a 71, and former British champion Lillian Behan went nine better in shooting a 72.

But first round leader Alison Coffey slipped back, incurring two double-bogeys on her way to a 79. "The aim was to qualify and I've done that," she said, philosophically.

The opening stretch of five holes has claimed its fair share of victims. "There are some holes you have just got to walk away with your par," said Fanagan, and, apart from a three-putt for bogey on the third, that's exactly what the Milltown player did.

At the seventh, Fanagan-O'Brien hit a nine-iron approach to four feet and sank the birdie putt, but she put her approach to the ninth into a bunker and failed to save her par to turn in one over 37.

Then, at the 15th, she played a superb five-wood second shot which finished just four feet from the flag, and she rolled in the eagle putt. She missed a four-footer for par, but managed another birdie at the last to take the Leitrim Cup.

The real warfare, however, starts today - and there are a number of intriguing opening encounters, most notably the one which sees Hazel Kavanagh face her Leinster inter-provincial colleague Sinead Keane in a battle of the big-hitters.

Coffey, who has won the Ulster and Leinster championships already this season, has been handed a first round meeting with Tralee's Mary Sheehy, and Barbara Hackett, the champion of two years ago, has been given an opening matchplay encounter with Sue Phillips of Coollattin.