Celia Barquín dead: Spanish golf champion found stabbed to death on course in Iowa

A man has been charged with murder hours after a champion golfer’s body was found on a US course.

Celia Barquín Arozamena was found on Monday morning in a pond at Coldwater Golf Links in Ames, Iowa.

The 22-year-old won the European Ladies' Amateur championship in July and was a student at Iowa State University.

Collin Daniel Richards, 22, has been charged with murder.

Police were called to the golf course at about 10.20am after golfers discovered an unattended golf bag.

Officers found Ms Barquín’s body some distance from the bag. They said she had been stabbed several times, in her upper torso, head and neck.

Richards is understood to be homeless and had been living in a wooded area near the golf course.

He had recently told an acquaintance of Richards that he had "an urge to rape and kill a woman", police said.

Officers found him with “several fresh scratches on his face consistent with fighting, and a deep laceration in his left hand that he tried to conceal”.

Ms Barquín, the 2018 Iowa State Female Athlete of the Year, was from Puente San Miguel in Spain. She was finishing her civil engineering degree.

The university said she was one of the most accomplished players in the history of their golf team, the Cyclones.