MANCHESTER – The rough has been cut to half the length used during the recent Maine Open, but the Augusta Country Club course still will present many challenges for the 90 golfers teeing off this morning for the Maine Women’s Amateur.

There are seven or eight contenders, including defending champ Emily Bouchard of Saco.

“I just had a practice round,” Bouchard, 22, said Sunday. “I like it. It’s a lot like my home course at Biddeford-Saco. The greens have a lot of undulations.”

Bouchard, who has the low handicap index (2.5) in the field, was to tee off in the first group with Leslie Genthner of Norway and a former schoolgirl champion, Whitney Hand (3.0) of Bucksport, but Hand withdrew due to a recent auto accident.

“We were definitely each other’s competition in high school,” Bouchard said of Hand.

Other past winners in the field include Kristen Kannegieser of Martindale, who won in 2007 and 2010, and a six-time winner, Pennie Cummings of Springbrook, who won in 2006 at age 62.

“Her age doesn’t mean anything,” Bouchard said.

The greens are fairly quick and well guarded.

“It can cost you a lot of strokes if you get in those bunkers,” said Linda Cameron, a club member and tournament participant.

The key to a successful round, Cameron said, is “staying up the middle as much as you can and being able to putt.”

Bouchard was the low Maine golfer at the New England Amateur at Natanis but wasn’t pleased, particularly with her putting.

“I lost confidence that week,” she said.

Bouchard regained some with Sunday’s practice round.

“I played well and I’m hitting the ball great,” she said. “My putting’s come back.”

The second group teeing off this morning includes Cummings (4.0), Kannegieser (5.5) and Margaret Brann of Brunswick (5.5). They be followed by Penosbcot Valley’s Alice Hwang (6.1), a 16-year-old who was low junior in the New England Amateur, with Laurie Hyndman (6.8) and Kathi O’Grady (7.4).

“I think anyone in those first three groups could probably win it,” Bouchard said.

The 54-hole, stroke-play tournament is the first since the Women’s Maine State Golf Association and Southern Maine Women’s Golf Association decided to combine for one ttle. The SMWGA held its own tourney since 1977. The WSMGA title generally was accepted as the overall championship since the organization formed in 1922.