14 Jul 2012 at 18:34 | Published by: Hans | Views: 11188 | News search

The two new Swedish Champions Filip Svensson and Frida Elmdahl during training  (Photo by Anders Nilsson 2012)

Earlier in the week we could read about some successful couples in the Russian Championships. This trend seems to be taken over also by the Swedes for their Championships.

The Swedish Championship this year was held in the south east corner of Sweden in Kalmar. It was described as the last combination Championship for some time and it was praised for its professional arrangement. Both the felt course and the eternit course proved to be quite hard and unforgiving for mistakes.

The starting field this year was much better than some years before and in the oldtimers and junior classes almost all the best players where present. In the general class it was a better starting field than last year but still many of the star players were not present. From the winning men’s team of last year only two out of 7 was starting in Kalmar. On the positive side was the total amount of players that was 130 which is quite clearly a step in the right direction.

Already on Friday evening the 3-man team Championships was awarded. In the ladies category four teams was starting and the Sjöviken team with two young junior girls and two oldtimers ladies won as they also did two years ago. Because this is the qualification for the European Cup in the ladies team in Sweden, Sjöviken will take that place.

In the men’s category it was to be a thriller. Because the 3 top teams used players in different age categories playing on different surfaces it was a bit hard to follow, but in the end when all was finished at the course except one player from Skoghall it was clear that Sundsvall was leading in the green room with two shots before Mjölby. The only player left on the course for Skoghall was forced to equal the course record on felt 25 strokes to be playing sudden death for gold. A round of 26 was needed for silver and if he made 33 or higher they were to miss medals.

But this alone guy was no less than the defending world Champions, Filiph Svensson, who also earlier in the week broke the current course record from 27 to 25 so if someone could do it was he. And so he did. After a superb play last round when he for very long seemed to break his own course record (16 strokes after 13 lanes) he landed on 25 to just reach the sudden death. And in this the reigning Champions from Skoghall (Filiph together with Sebastian Mårtensson and Sebastian Ekängen) showed no mercy and all aced lane one on felt for the gold, leaving Sundsvall (Morgan Munther, Peter Söderlund, S-I Mellqvist) for silver and Mjölby for Bronze.

In the Oldboys category we viewed what seemed to be a quite easy victory for Peter Söderlund, Sundsvall, for quite long into the competitions. Last week he was best of all players in the special oldtimers Championships on felt. After Fridays play he was in the lead with 9 strokes. But then the competitors started to sharpen their game and stroke by stroke they came closer. Closest of them all in the end with only one stroke from Peter and the gold medal was Martin Lundell from Gullbergsbro. Martin started quite slow and was 13 strokes behind Peter with only three laps to go. But ending with 21-31-19 he took 12 of these 13 to land in silver. In third place was another slow starter, last year’s winner Jan-Åke Persson, who was 16 strokes behind Peter with 3 rounds to go. At the end he was 5 behind and took the bronze one stroke before his club mate in Sjöviken Mats Olsson.

In the Oldgirls class Annelie Larsson, partner with silver medalist Martin Lundell took the gold with quite some margin, beating her club mate Bernice Thors also from Gullbergsbro with 15 strokes.

In the boy’s junior another tough battle for the medals appeared. In the end Anders Brandt of Linjen preserved his phenomenal suite of winning the juniors class this year by winning a third title in a row (Askim, Skoghall and SM). This time his main rival was Markus Nilsson of Hårdton who was in the lead almost to the end but was passed by Anders with two laps to go. Markus then came back and with two lanes to go he was even with Anders. An unfortunate 3 on lane 17 gave Anders his chance to pass again and so he did and won by a single stroke in the end. Anders and Marcus was really in a class of their own with 17 strokes down to bronze from silver.

The battle for bronze was to become a battle between the two training friends from Eskilstuna and Fröslunda, Derice Shumilov Susoho and Alexander Dahlstedt. In the end Derice was the stronger of the two winning bronze by a margin of 5 strokes.

Sara Karlsson, Olofström, won an overwhelming victory again in the girls’ junior class. With a winning margin of 21 strokes (last year she won by an even more remarkable 37 strokes) she was beating the silver medalist Marielle Svensson. But it was the final day that was decisive and on this day Sara won over Marielle with 18 strokes. Bronze medalist was last year’s runner up Lina Liljegren of Sjöviken another 3 behind Marielle.

In the ladies class we find the widest winning margin of the competition. Frida Elmdahl of Växjö made her debute in the general class with some style. She won in a class of her own with a margin of 44 strokes in 12 laps (3.6 strokes better per lap) is setting a new record margin in Swedish modern minigolf history. She was by far the best lady overall and actually the 9th best player overall (only passed by men and oldtimer men players). The battle in this class was actually for silver where Swedish national team player Sandra Bengtsson could be the winner in the end, 8 strokes in front of Rose-Marie Lönnqvist.

In the men’s category Fridas boyfriend, world champion and reigning Swedish Champion, Filiph Svensson of Skoghall, was a bit slow in the start. But from round 2 and forward he made the rest of the starting field only to be battle for silver. His felt on the difficult felt course with a average of 27.8 was 2.2 strokes better in average than any other player. But he also showed a good performance on the eternit course and in the end he won by 21 strokes only one less than last year’s record margin of 22. He broke the course record with 25 not only one but 3 times. But on round 10 Filiph Johansson broke it another time to become 24. In second position we find maybe the biggest surprise of all medalists this weekend. Local player from a neighbor club, Fredrik Tagesson Olofströms, played very well all along and took the silver in style with a margin of 4 strokes down to Filiph Johansson of Sjöviken in bronze. The world Champion of 2009, Jonas Gustafsson made a strong finish (best of all players on the final day with 101 strokes) but was in the end one stroke from medal.

Next weekend is the last weekend of the Swedish elitserien on the beton course of Skoghall.

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