15 May 2011 at 12:07 | Published by: Hans | Views: 12929 | News search

Martin Stöckle is taking a victory bath in Hastings  (Photo by DMV Facebook)

The first ever WMF World Adventure Golf Masters gathered 30 players in Hastings UK on Friday-Saturday. The competition was played on the relatively easy new adventure Golf Course where anything more than 2 on each lane was a disaster.

The starting field consisted of 18 UK players, 5 Germans, 3 Austrians, 2 Kosovo and 1 player from Finland and Sweden. In the beginning it seemed like the continental players should have big troubles with the best locals, but after some laps especially the German players, where 3 are Bundesliga players (Stöckle, Kube and Klassen) gained more and more momentum.

On the last round of the first day Stöckle took over the lead from Michael Smith by a brilliant course record round of 25. On Saturday many players hunted for the leaders with really low results. Oleg Klassen set the new course record with 24 on the first round and continued with 29-32 for a Saturday score of 85 ending in 7th place. John Mittler of Finland was even sharper with 30-29-25=84 ending sixth. But the lowest results came from German Thomas Giebenhain with 26-29-28=83 took the fourth place. In fifth came the consistent playing James Rutherford with all rounds between 32 and 29.

But even if the top 3 didn’t play as low as their hunters their Friday advantage was too big to catch up. So the struggle for the medals was amongst Stöckle, Kube and Smith. These three players had only one course each with higher scores than 2 in the seven rounds played.

In the end it was Martin Stöckle from MC Niendorf, Hamburg and Germany that took the gold two strokes before Kube from Dormagen Brechten, Germany. Third place, another stroke behind went to the best player in the UK at the moment Michael Smith, Oxford.

The Team competition was won by Germany before England 1. Best lady was Emily Gottfried in 24th place.

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