MADRID, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The reigning European women's amateur golf champion, Celia Barquin was murdered on Monday when she was playing a round at the Coldwater golf course in the town of Ames in the US State of Iowa, the local police have informed.

The 22-year-old Spaniard was studying at the University of Iowa State and died "as the consequence of an attack."

The Spanish media report the alarm was raised after her golf bag a discovered by other golfers, who alerted authorities and her body was found "at a certain distance from the bag."

A 22-year-old Collin Daniel Richards has been arrested and charged with first degree homicide over the killing.

Barquin was Iowa State's female athlete of the year and in 2018 she won the Big 12 women's golf tournament and also qualified for the US Open, although she failed to make the cut after the first two rounds.

"This is a tragic and senseless loss of a talented young and acclaimed student," commented the President of her university, Wendy Wintersteen, while Alejandro Blanco, the President of the Spanish Olympic Committee said he was "deeply upset," by the death and sent his sympathies to Barquin's family.