Seniors German Championship in Mainz
23 Jul 2011 at 10:52 | Published by: mindthegap | Views: 10738 | News search
Udo Rathje wins Seniors German Championship. (Photo by MGC Mainz 2011)
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The two Mainz courses (concrete and eternit) hosted the top German senior players for the Senior’s German Championship from the 13th ot 16th of July. Both first teams (men and women) of the local club being resident on these courses play in the 1. Bundesliga, so they are used to big minigolf events. Therefore the Championship was well organized and the catering was excellent.
Both courses are challenging as they are built into a slope of the scenery, so some lanes have strong breaks. But nevertheless excellent scores were played. A 23 and several 24’s on concrete and three times a 19 on eternit show the quality of the tournament.
16 rounds in total were to play, starting with 12 preliminary rounds and another 2 intermediate rounds for the best players. The top players then qualified for the last 2 final rounds. The team competition was decided after the preliminary rounds.
The first day was very rainy, so only 2 rounds could be played. But with a 14 hours marathon on the second day the tournament was on schedule again.
The male senior’s category (men older than 45) saw a storming victory of Hamburg’s Udo Rathje, 14 shots ahead of Markus Janssen from the 1. Bundesliga team Dormagen-Brechten. The local player Hannes Klee came 3rd just 1 shot behind. It was a hard fight for the lead in the first 12 rounds with changing leaders again and again. But in the last 4 rounds Udo could more and more get away from the others. Not so long ago he was one of the top players in the men’s category. By the way there were several senior men among the top players who were excellent in the men’s category a few years ago. Some of them still play for teams in the 1st or 2nd Bundesliga. And there will be more and more of the top men and women changing to the senior’s category in the next years. So we will see more and more exciting competitions at the senior’s championship in the future.
Heinz-Theo Giegel from the Herten club had an even more storming victory in the male senior II category (that of the elderly seniors aged above 58). He won the tournament 18 shots ahead of Manfred Reinhard from Remseck. Manfred Kalisch from K?nzell came 3rd. Heinz-Theo even was the overall leader after 8 rounds, even better than all the male seniors.
The top three players in the female senior’s category read like the ”who is who” of the women’s category just a few years ago. Two of them still play for teams in the 1. Bundesliga. The Grand Old Lady of German minigolf, Hamburg’s Gabriele Rahmlow won 10 shots ahead of Cuxhaven’s Andrea Reinicke, who was in lead for a long time and equal with Gabriele after round 14. Alice Kobisch from Mainz came 3rd another 8 shots behind.
The female senior II category was won by Cuxhaven’s Birgit Stiebeling 29 shots ahead of Hamburg’s Brunhilde Rahmlow. Dortmund’s Anna Kalh?fer came 3rd.
The Berlin team from the club VfM Berlin won the team competition in a convincing manner and could defend its title from 2010, but there was a hard fight for the 2nd place in the last rounds. Alice Kobisch won the decisive shots with a terrific 24 on concrete in the last round. So Mainz reached the 2nd place just 1 shot ahead of Waldshut. There were 18 senior teams from all over Germany fighting for the cup, so again it was a great senior team competition.
Links to results, reviews and photos, all in German language:
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full results
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report 1st + 2nd day by Heiner Sprengkamp
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report 3rd day by Heiner Sprengkamp
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report finals by Heiner Sprengkamp
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report 1st day by Birgit Stiebeling
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report 2nd day by Birgit Stiebeling
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report 3rd day by Birgit Stiebeling
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review by Birgit Stiebeling
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press release by MGC Mainz
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article Allgemeine Zeitung Rhein-Main
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photos of the competition
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video impressions from the competition
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