10 Jun 2017 at 14:41 | Published by: PatPenguin | Views: 20795 | News search

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The WMF Minigolf Croatian Grand Prix was played the weekend of June 3 -4, 2017 at Zaton Holiday Resort in Croatia. The event saw 28 participants, from 6 countries, and 6 teams battling it out for the titles on both Miniaturegolf (Eternite) and Felt courses. The tournament, originally slated for 8 rounds, was extended to 10 rounds with the top 6 players playing one "speed" round at the end to crown the champion.

In the men's competition, Fredrik Persson (SWE) was extremely consistent through the ten rounds, leading the pack by five strokes at the end with a total of 245. This included two course record rounds on the felt course of 24. Marcel Noack (GER) and Rupert Westenthaler (AUT) followed closely behind, both with scores of 250. They both shot some impressive 20 and 21 on Eternite to keep it close with Fredrik. Daniel Moser (SUI) and Marian Strasko (CZE) finished 4th and 5th with Daniel setting the Eternite course record of 19 in his eighth overall round. Dan Trulsson (SWE) and Zdenek Majkus (CZE) tied for the last speed round position with a 257 which lead to final sudden death tie-breaker (see link below for Facebook video). Dan would win and round out the top 6 in the speed round.

In the women's category Marielle Svensson (SWE) shot the best at 272 but it wasn't enough to crack the top 6 for the overall tournament champion competition. Anna Bandera (ITA) followed with a 288 and Alena Dolezelova (CZE) rounded out the top 3 with a 292.

The general rules of the speed round were that the player has 60 seconds to complete the lane successfully. The player gets 2 points for each ace, 1 point for each completed lane inside the time limit, 0 points for not completed lanes. The lowest score player is eliminated after the 6, 9, 12 and 15 lanes, leaving only two players to battle it out to the end. The round was played over 18 holes on a combination of both Felt and Eternite so the player really had to change their styles while playing under the clock. Fredrik found 24 to be the magic number again in this round (this time points instead of strokes), which was enough to keep him ahead of Daniel Moser by 1 point and as result made him both the winner of the men's category and the overall winner. The full results of the speed round were:

1st place Fredrik Persson (SWE) 24 points and wins €300
2nd place Daniel Moser (SUI) 25 points and wins €200
3rd place Marian Strasko (CZE) 21 points after 15 lanes and wins €120
4th place Rupert Westenthaler (AUT) 17 points after 12 lanes and wins €80
5th place Marcel Noack (GER) 16 points after 9 lanes and wins €60
6th place Dan Trulsson (SWE) 11 points after 6 lanes and wins €40

In the team event, it was no surprise that Sweden took the overall title given their first place finishes in both the men's and women's categories. They were able to hold off the Czech 1 team by 20 strokes and the German team by 35.

Thank you to the WMF and Alberto Pirovano for posting the information used in this article. Don't forget to visit WMF Facebook page as there is also a post with the complete speed round (if you have an hour to watch it!)

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