19 Sep 2012 at 17:24 | Published by: paoloITA | Views: 11818 | News search

During last weekend most of the best Italian players met in Novi Ligure to play "INFINITE Cup", the prestigious tournament on miniaturegolf course that has now come to its 8th Edition.

A chance also to celebrate the new European matchplay champion, Paolo Porta, that plays for the home team MGC Novi Ligure.
Paolo has not been that much distracted from parties and celebrations for his historical success, and could manage to stay focused on this tournament.

In fact, he won the overall individual trophy of this event for the 5th time (out of 8 editions), even if this has been probably the most difficult of the 5 victories.
For all the tournament Paolo had to play "stroke by stroke" with his young friend and national team mate Emanuele Prestinari (from GSP Cusano), who challenged him very hard from start to finish. After 2 rounds, Paolo had a small advantage of 2 strokes with his 39 (20-19) despite of the 41 from Emanuele (21-20). But in the third round, Emanuele could overtake Paolo with a 19 against a 23 and started the last round with 2 strokes advantages.
Both players came to play the last lane of the round with a "+4" so the 2 strokes advantages were still safe for Emanuele. But the last lane is a difficult blitz, where Paolo scored an ace and Emanuele a 3. At the end of the 4 rounds the two friends were tied with 84 strokes.
A playoff was necessary to define the winner and Paolo closed it immediately at lane 1 (to confirm his very good attitude at "matchplay" modus).
But a very good performance for Emanuele too, being only 17 years he's the absolute leader by far of the italian ranking having played very well all the season long.
The podium of the elite men category is completed by Francesco Morandi (MC Monza) with 86 strokes.

Not big surprises in the other categories: the elite ladies has been won by Anna Bandera (GSP Cusano) with 91 strokes; the senior men category by Pierluigi Marchiani (GSP Cusano) with 93 strokes and the senior ladies category by Ornella Campora (MSC San Romolo) the recent european vice-champion in the matchplay senior event, with 92 strokes. Daniele Diotti (MT Amatese) won the youngsters' category.

In the team event, as usual the match has been between home team MGC Novi Ligure and GSP Cusano (the only team that can beat the home team in the previous editions of this tournament). This year the victory went to GSP Cusano, that obtained the decisive advantage in the first round, when the home team had a really bad start being only in 5th place. At the end, GSP Cusano scored 271 strokes, MGC Novi Ligure 280. Third place for MC Monza with 286 strokes.

No 18 rounds during this tournament, but 3x "19" played by Paolo Porta, Emanuele Prestinari and Gioachino Ricchiuto.

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