Born: Dover, Kent. 24 June '73 Home: Kissimmee, Florida Turned pro: August 1998, 1999 earnings: $34,826 2004 earnings: $711,930 Driving average: 266.2 yards

Stupples was almost broke after turning pro in 1999, but the �160,000 prize for winning the British Open confirms her as a new star of women's golf.

"After all I've been through, it shows you should never give up. You should always keep fighting for your dreams," said the Florida-based 31 year old.

Stupples now has set her sights on making the Solheim Cup team.

A full-time member of the American LPGA Tour, Stupples says she intends to join the Ladies European Tour next year as an international member so she can play in enough events to qualify.

Stupples' victory is the first major win by a Briton in eight years, and a stunning vindication for a player who has not had it easy following her chosen path as a professional golfer.

In 1998, while a successful amateur with two Curtis Cup appearances under her belt but no money to make it on tour, she was working as waitress at Etchinghill Golf Course in Folkestone when her life was changed by a generous customer.

Having read about her impressive amateur results, businessman Andrew Rawlings offered to sponsor her for three years.

"Write up a budget for me and I'll give you the money to try," the insurance broker offered.

On my first year on tour I had been thrown in at the deep end without a life jacket and I wasn't coping Karen Stupples

Stupples laughed.

"I went back to the kitchen and brought their dessert out, and his wife said, 'You know, we're dead serious.'"

"I have asked him many times since, 'Why did you do that for me?'" added Stupples. "He just says, 'I just wanted to give somebody a head start.'"

With Rawlings' backing, Stupples sold all her possessions and flew to America to pursue her dream.

But she found her first year tough, making the cut just seven times, and was nearly forced to quit.

Going into the Philips Invitational in Austin, Texas, in late 1999 she knew that unless she made money that week her career would be finished.

Sunningdale hails new British Open champion

"I had $500 and that was all I had in the world," she recalls

"It was my first year on tour and I had been thrown in at the deep end without a life jacket and I wasn't coping.

"I knew I had to make money and fortunately I won $800 in the pro-am and then $1,500 in the tournament, otherwise it was all over."

"It took me two or three years on tour before I got comfortable with things," said Stupples.

But slowly it started to come together, and last year she began to find success, ending the season the top ranked European player on the LPGA Tour, earning $325,744 (�178,228).

When she won her maiden title at the start of the year, setting a new all-time scoring record of 22 under par winning the Welch's/Fry's Championship in Arizona, she wept on the 18th for "all the years of sacrifice".

"I got very emotional. I was crying so hard I couldn't see the final 10-footer. I said to my caddie, 'Is it straight?'.

She's the real thing Laura Davies

"And he said, 'No, it's at least two balls to the right.'"

She explained: "When I started to play amateur golf at a good level my dad gave up his own golf because he couldn't afford both of us.

"And my sister had to give up her gymnastics, which she was really good at. Mum and dad went without things for the house; everything went into my golf."

She was able to reward her parents with victory on home soil, only her third tournament as a professional in England.

"To have my parents here this week was very, very special because they weren't there for my first tour win in Arizona - they had to wait to till Tuesday to see that on the TV. To be here live and in person was really very special."

Now Stupples is the best British woman on the US tour by a distance and the only European, apart from Annika Sorenstam, to have won an event.

She practises under the guidance of her coach at the Nick Faldo Institute in Orlando and is developing her strength and fitness with Sorenstam's trainer Kai Fusser.

And her victory at Sunningdale has pundits asking whether British golf has finally found someone to take over the mantle from 40-year-old Laura Davies, so long the hero of British women's golf, and Trish Johnson.

Davies, who has four major titles but never won the British title, is characteristically gracious. "Every time I play with her she impresses me," she said.

"She's the real thing, definitely."