HOTELPLANNER.COM PGA EUROPRO TOUR QUALIFYING SCHOOL ANNOUNCED

Five venues will host First Stage before Final Stage at Frilford Heath

The HotelPlanner.com PGA EuroPro Tour can announce its Qualifying School venues for 2015, which for the first time includes five First Stage courses.

Slaley Hall, Mottram Hall, The Players Club, Burhill Golf Club and Woldingham Golf Club will all host 36-hole First Stage events on Tuesday, March 31 and Wednesday, April 1.

Those successful at First Stage will then head to long-standing Final Stage host Frilford Heath, where they will be joined by exempt players with 18 holes to be played on each the Red and Blue Courses before a cut to the leading 80 players and ties who will play a final round on Blue Course. Final Stage takes place Wednesday, April 8 until Friday, April 10.

All professional golfers and amateurs with a handicap of two or better are able to enter Qualifying School and attempt to earn their playing rights for what is set to be an exciting 2015 on the HotelPlanner.com PGA EuroPro Tour. Entries open on January 5 and more details about how to join the Tour can be found at www.europrotour.com

The HotelPlanner.com PGA EuroPro Tour is Europe’s leading development tour, and the European Tour’s satellite in the UK and Ireland.

The Tour offers direct access to the Challenge Tour through the final Order of Merit, with the top five golfers at the end of the season to be awarded a category on the 2016 Challenge Tour. Players will play for a total prize pool of over £800,000 across the 2015 season.

Providing vital experience of life on tour, players will compete in 15 main events at some of the UK and Ireland’s premier golfing venues, with full details announced on January 5, coinciding with the opening of Qualifying School entries.

The past twelve months have provided yet another stellar year for recent HotelPlanner.com PGA EuroPro Tour members. 2013 Order of Merit winner Oliver Farr secured his European Tour card through the 2014 Challenge Tour Order of Merit while William Harrold, who won two events at the start of the 2014 season on the HotelPlanner.com PGA EuroPro Tour, claimed his first Challenge Tour title.

Eight victories were recorded on the European Tour during the 2014 season by former EuroPro members including maiden wins for Daniel Brooks and Oliver Wilson.

In addition John Parry, Matt Ford, Tom Murray and the 2012 PGA EuroPro Tour Order of Merit winner Paul Maddy all made it through European Tour Qualifying School to earn their right to play on the European Tour in 2015.

For more details about playing on the HotelPlanner.com PGA EuroPro Tour in 2015, visit www.europrotour.com

 

Is Rory McIlroy right to suggest that golf should be speeded up?

Golf, perhaps the only game in which strolling is traditionally encouraged, was the latest sport seen to be in a crisis of tempo. 

 

In 2013 America lost about half a million regular players compared with the previous year. In Britain the number of young people regularly playing the game almost halved between 2010 and 2013. 

The latter fact was put forward as one reason why Rory Mcllroy lost to Lewis Hamilton in the popular vote as sports personality of the year. When Mcllroy was asked about some of this by the BBC he suggested that the fall-off in players was most likely down to speed. “Gone are the days that you could spend five or six hours on a golf course,” he said. “Everything’s so instant now, and everyone doesn’t have as much time as they used to.” His solution, when pressed, was to suggest the need for “some way of speeding the game up … I don’t think they need to alter tournament-play formats”, he said. “It’s the grassroots – definitely not at our level.”

For the same period television viewing figures for golf have risen in Britain, the argument sounds a lot like a contemporary truism: boredom thresholds are plummeting, better hurry the thing up, keep them interested. It is the same argument that led – successfully – to the creation of Twenty20 cricket and, lately, the effort to accelerate tennis with the inaugural International Premier Tennis League – strapline: “break the code” – in which the Indian Aces, led by Roger Federer and Pete Sampras, triumphed over the UAE Royals of Novak Djokovic and Caroline Wozniacki. The tournament, organised by the Indian former player Mahesh Bhupathi, promised “to change the manner in which the world enjoys the sport”, to bring “NBA-style entertainment” to tennis fans. To this end, in a six-player-per-team, five-set format, perceived frustrations such as deuce points and tie breaks were eliminated, along with much in the way of concentration or intensity. There were frequent substitutions and the introduction of “happiness power points” that counted double. A big clock counted down time between serves and quietness (that other perilously dull quality for sporting entrepreneurs) was inevitably outlawed in favour of thumping bass lines and raucous crowd “participation” between points. Some players were being paid more than a million dollars a day to take part; one of them, Federer, called it “a crazy, but fun” event, one likely to become an annual fixture.

Mcllroy may be correct in his belief that one way to increase participation in golf is to make changes to the Royal and Ancient code that would speed the game up – though it is quite hard to imagine what those changes would be beyond pitch and putt or running between strokes – but he is perhaps naive to believe that will have no impact on how the game is played at the highest level. As cricket is still discovering, the qualities that created the Test match game – concentration, stamina and doggedness as well as skill and technique – are often directly opposed to those needed to thrive in the Big Bash.
Would speed golf work? There is no clear evidence to suggest that the modernisation of sports, the breaking of codes, results in greater participation in them. In fact, the converse seems likely.

Source

1st Days Results - Drive to Turkey 2014 - Sueno Resort, Balek

This 1^st round was played on the Pines course at Sueno Resort Balek Turkey

1st Mark Marshall and Rob Moore 42pts
2nd Mike Smith and Kevin Roberts 38pts
3rd Lee Ashworth and Jon Topping 38pts

4th Sam Dummer and Chris Fisher 35pts
5th Mark Aindow and Gareth Wright 35pts
6th Kevin Light and Anthony Allen 34pts
7th Graeme and Donald Purdue 34pts
8th Howard Milligan and K Goodall 33pts
9th Andy Holland and Phil Gettings 32pts
10th Ella and Cath Rawthore 30pts
11th Mark Rawling and Alan Towey 27pts

The second round is on Saturday and the final round Monday 

The Drive To Turkey Finalists Are.....

Final Days:
The competition is a 2 ball better ball competition stableford, 3 rounds over three days

1st Round Thursday 20th November
2nd Round Saturday 22nd November
3rd Round Monday 24th November
 

Finalists are as Follows:

Team 1 Mark Marshall Rob Moore	Team 2 Andy Holland Phil Getting	Team 3 Karen Goodall Howard Milligan	Team 4 Gareth Wright Mark Aindow
Team 5 Sam Dummer Christian Flecher	Team 6 Mike Smith  Kevin Roberts	Team 7 Cath Rawthorne Ella Rawthorne	Team 8 Graham Purdue Donald Purdue
Team 9 Mike Rawlings Alan Towey	Team 10 lee Ashworth Jon Topping	Team 11 Rick Hambert Andrew Douglas	Team 12 Kevin light Antony Allen

Drive to Turkey Finals Start Tomorrow!

Drive to Turkey Final trip starts tomorrow! and runs through to 25th November 2014. This is a 7 day trip with 3 rounds of final competition golf. Held at Sueno Hotels Golf, Belek, Turkey, a wonderful resort support by Bilyana Golf Holidays. The competitors will enjoy 3 rounds of golf at Sueno Hotels Golf, 2 rounds on the Pine course and 1 round on the Dunes course. The Two Championship courses, provide a challenge for even the very low handicapper golfer, from 'Big Easy' so called 1st hole on Pines course to the 18th a tight dog leg hole called 'Mirage'  and with the guaranteed sun, makes this a perfect winter golf destination.

Quotes from 2013 Competitiors
 
Steve Charlton - Qualifier at Oulton Park 2012 "We plan to try our hardest to qualify again for the finals next year and will spread our entries over several venues"

Iftikhar Ahmed - Qualifier at Stockport Golf Club 2012 "Just pure quality, all credit to you and your team, great golf"

Frank Gomez - Winner of Drive to Spain 2012 "The hospitality was brilliant, the golf was brilliant all within a family environment"

Martyn Smith - Winner of Drive to Spain 2012 "We had a truly fabulous time that will forever be a happy memory"

SALTMAN WINS VISIT EGYPT TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP

Scotsman also tops Race To El Gouna to earn 2015 Challenge Tour card

Elliot Saltman shot a final-round 70 to win the Visit Egypt Tour Championship at El Gouna Golf Club with a 54-hole score of eight under par, and the £15,000 winner’s prize has catapulted him to the top of the final HotelPlanner.com PGA EuroPro Tour Race To El Gouna.

The Scot has earned a category on the 2015 Challenge Tour and will be joined by Jack Senior, Peter Tarver-Jones, James Watts and Stiggy Hodgson on Europe’s second-tier tour after they also finished in the top five on the Race To El Gouna.

However, Senior currently sits inside the top 70 on the Challenge Tour rankings and should he remain there at the conclusion of this week’s event in Oman, he will secure a Challenge Tour card for next season based on his final ranking position, allowing James Robinson to take up a category as one of the EuroPro’s top five not otherwise exempt.

Billy Hemstock just misses out, finishing seventh on the Race To El Gouna for the second successive year.

Saltman (Archerfield Links Golf Club) began the final round with a two-stroke lead on six under and birdies at the second, fourth and ninth took him to nine under. Laurie Canter (Saltford Golf Club) and James Frazer (Pennard Golf Club) stayed in touch for most of the round, and Canter briefly levelled with Saltman at eight under thanks to birdies at 11 and 12, just as Saltman bogeyed the 11th.
Saltman returned to nine under with a birdie at the 13th. Canter signed for a final-round 68 (four under par), the best score of the day, to finish the tournament seven under. That left Saltman two clear as he came down 18 and though he made bogey after finding a fairway bunker, the Scot claimed a wire-to-wire victory for his first EuroPro Tour win since success at Fota Island in 2012.

“Deep down I thought I had a chance this week,” said Saltman. “I came into the tournament knowing my game was in really good shape. But to actually pull off the win, and in the circumstances, has really proved to myself that I am capable of doing it under pressure.

“Looking back, three rounds under par in windy conditions, I should congratulate myself. It is playing very, very tough. The scoring was good today and the boys did well trying to chase me down. The course is in great, great condition and you cannot let up for one moment.

“It is massive to win the Race To El Gouna, it is something I said I wanted to do at the start of the season.

“It didn’t start off as planned when I got beaten in a play-off at Montrose and then at Cumberwell Park, but you keep your chin up, go back to the drawing board and keep practising. When I lost the play-off at Cumberwell I did wonder if it wouldn’t happen. The break since the end of the season has done me well to go back and pick myself up. I have proved to myself I can stand up to the task and come up with the goods.”

Nick McCarthy (Moortown Golf Club) finished the tournament third on five under, three back, while Frazer took fourth on four under.

A two-hour highlights package of the Visit Egypt Tour Championship will be broadcast on Sky Sports HD on Tuesday, November 11.