14 May 2019 at 13:15 | Published by: PatPenguin | Views: 6552 | News search

Division 1 Start  (Photo by Jens Bergström)

Swedish minigolf association has for the first time decided that team gatherings within Svenska Serien can be held on MOS courses. Last weekend both Div 1 leagues had gatherings playing on MOS. In the northern league they played in Sundsvall and in the southern league they played in Gothenburg at Gullbergsbro where the WAGM 2014 were held.

Two clubs were a bit more favourites then the others in the South as they had a complete set of experienced MOS players and also the advantage of playing in their home city making it possible to practice a lot on the courses;

1. Askim: 3 players from the Swedish team champions of 2016 and also the golden coach Pauli Kuikka.

2. Gullbergsbro: the home team with Senior female gold medalist from WAGM 2014 Linda Lundberg, senior male silver medalist from 2014, Reine Niord, senior male bronze medalist from Hastings 2015, Tomas Sennerby, and of course the triple medalist from the youth championship of last year, Alexander Niord.

As this is the second highest league there were also a lot of other good players like former Elitserien player, Fredrik Tagesson and also a lot of players who have been wearing the Swedish colours in youth championships or in senior championships. Malmö also had their multi-discipline star player Annelie Lundell with two WAGM medals and also medals from other championships. Nässjö had a MOS pioneer and starplayer in Johan Ahlander who have three silvers from British Open also with merits from Elitserien.

The home team had shown to the teams how to play in a basic way but during practice there was of course a lot of curious players trying to look at the two favourite teams to see which ball they used and where they put it and what they aimed at.

First start was on Saturday 9 o'clock in the morning and Asarum vs Uddevalla was the first match out. In the first round of matches Askim won by 24 strokes over Malmö and Gullbergsbro won by 8 strokes over Olofström having taken a 5 stroke lead after about six lanes where a good player will normally have about three aces and then taking 4 strokes on lane 10.

At WAGM 2014 the British star player Michael Smith started on first round by setting a new course record with 28 strokes. In this first round, Jens Bergström was fortunate enough to beat that record by making a 27-round. From Jens: "It was really amazing to be able to beat that old course record. Some lanes are a bit easier now then it was at that time but anyway it was a special feeling."

Already in the second round it was time for the great match, Askim vs Gullbergsbro. Gullbergsbro started a little bit better and at lane 6-8 they extended their lead and at lane 10 they had 4 strokes less and the match was kind of closed after that. There was no way for Askim to get back into the game and Reine got his revenge for WAGM 2014 after beating Jens by 31-32. While playing that game Annelie Lundell scored a 27-round in another match.

In the remaining two rounds of Saturday there was no big surprise but as you know Pauli Kuikka likes records so he had his 27-round in the third round. It became quite clear that if you met Askim or Gullbergsbro you could actually get help from them if you asked even if they were your opponents. You could also get help if anyone of them were standing beside and you had a bad putt situation. The most tight game on Saturday was between Uddevalla and Sjöviken. Uddevalla had quite many strokes in advance when three lanes was left to play but Sjöviken fought well and took many strokes but just to see Uddevalla win by 2 strokes Some teams stayed for one hour extra practice after the games had finished on Saturday. It should show that it was a good decision because most teams improved their results and especially Malmö who went from 179.25 in average after first day to an average of 173.5 in total after all games.

Even more tight was the next match for Uddevalla against Nässjö. After 14 lanes Nässjö lead by 1 stroke but on the 15th and the 16th lane, quite hard to ace, Uddevalla had two aces on each and thereby lead by 3 strokes. It was nervousness in the game and after misses from both teams Nässjö took one stroke on lane 17 often called "the cake" because of its 2-level plateaus where the ball will fall off if you don't place it on the top plateau which is about 2 metres in diameter. Nässjö had 8 strokes on the last lane which is the big downhill looking like a Z. Uddevalla had 11 strokes and thereby Nässjö was now more or less stuck in the fourth place. During this round Jens shot a 27-round once again while playing against Olofström.

In the last round Askim and Gullbergsbro continued to play well not letting any other team destroy their plans of getting a lot of points. Alexander Njord, the talented junior, continued to have rounds under 30 and with a finishing 27-round he made his way up to the top of the straight list. The most tight game though were held between Malmö and Olofström. Malmö led by Lars Isberg in a strong finish with a 28-round won by 5 strokes giving them 10 points in total and a third place.

The opinions about playing MOS was very positive from most of the players. There was also a very positive attitude from the experienced MOS-players to help the other players. The rule that their can be two coaches on the arena also helped the players to have more knowledge on the arena to teach but also to learn.


Tournament Photo. Credit: Jens Bergström

Article and photos courtesy of Jens Bergström.

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