19 Aug 2014 at 23:30 | Published by: mindthegap | Views: 23596 | News search

Dustin Raffler from Essen-Vogelheim, winner of the mens category  (Photo by Willi Hettrich)

The German Cobigolf Championship took place in Essen-Vogelheim from the 14th - 16th of August. It was hold on this course in 2008 as well.

Cobigolf is a rare minigolf system. As far as I know there are no Cobigolf courses in other countries. There are two types of courses: With big and small lanes. The big lanes are similar to concrete lanes. Essen-Vogelheim is a Cobigolf course with small lanes, similar to eternit, but with completely different obstacles. If you want to learn more about Cobigolf, have a look at my article about the 2011 German Cobigolf Championship:

German Cobigolf Championship 2011 in Hamm

Essen-Vogelheim is definitely the easiest Cobigolf course in Germany. Even scores below 20 are possible, and an average score of around 22 is not unusual. And it has been played again at this Championship.

The men's category was won by a local player from the Vogelheim club: Dustin Raffler. He started awfully in the 1st round - with a 7 on lane 14, the so called "Hochkrone" (high crown), the most difficult lane on the course, and got a 32. But from round to round he caught up to the others and in the 9th round he conquered the lead. With 234 (ø 23.4) he won, just one shot ahead of Markus Kuntermann, now playing for the Cobigolf club Baltrum (he used to play for Wesel). It's not the first title for Dustin. He also won in 2012 on the other course in Essen, Essen-Stoppenberg.

Stefanie Tomkowitz from Baltrum won the ladies category with 238 (ø 23.8), her 3rd title in a row. With the same result Willi Hettrich from Castrop won the senior II category (aged above 58). Together with his senior's team mates Castrop formed the leading trio in this category, but they didn't win the senior's team competition. The team from Bergisch Land with Andreas Grzeski, Lutz Wierum, Gerno Grapengeter and Frank Exner was better and won the title, ahead of Castrop on the 2nd place. Bergisch Land was quite successful in the senior's category. 4 players from Bergisch Land are on the first 6 places. The men's team competition was won by Baltrum, only 2 shots ahead of Wesel.

But the best player of all was Ralf Schmidt-Hess from Grötzingen. He won the senior's category with 222 and an incredible average of 22.2. He even played a 19 in the 4th round. He has got a good selection of titles, won the men's category 3 times, and it's his 3rd title in the senior's category. There was another 19 played by his club mate Thomas Rastetter, and this was the most unusual 19 you can imagine on this course. He made the only two on lane 5, the so called "Weitschlag" (long-distance shot), a lane equal to lane 7 on concrete. The end circle of this lane is a funnel in Vogelheim, so if you reach the end circle with the first shot, it should be in every time. In the lane statistics you can see that this lane has the lowest average.

Links to results and photos, all in German language:

»Results
»Photos by Willi Hettrich part I (you need to be logged in at facebook)
»Photos by Willi Hettrich part II
»Photos by Willi Hettrich part III

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