25 Nov 2012 at 19:54 | Published by: mindthegap | Views: 13871 | News search

Entrance to the Minigolf Course  (Photo by Willi Hettrich)

The Asian Open 2012 took place at the Concrete course in Chiang Mai, Thailand, from the 22nd to 24th of November. The minigolf course is located in a tropical area at the Golden Elephant Resort in Chiang Mai, so it's a phantastic scenery, and the accommodation looks very nice. The weather was sunny and very hot - with temperatures between 30 and 35 degrees. Due to the hot temperatures the tournament was interrupted around midday until 3 pm every day - a very unusual experience for European players as they are more used to interruptions due to rain. But on the last day, just during the closing ceremony, there was a thunderstorm with heavy rain, which caused a power cut until 5 am in the next morning. The hospitality of the hosts was outstanding and the food was great, but for some Europeans maybe a bit too hot. The three Germans, for example, had a Thai massage in one evening and enjoyed a bit of wellness. But this was necessary to recover from a very hot day with practice. According to the experiences of the German participants it is a challenging course but allowing good scores, even below 30.

There were 3 rounds to play every day. The first two days counted for the team competition and the 3rd day in addition for the individual ranking. The Germans were very successful in the men's category, with the reigning European Champion Achim Braungart-Zink winning with 262 (ø 29.11) and Danny Hense coming 2nd with 265 (ø 29.44). Achim and Danny showed a great performance as 5 out of their 9 rounds were green (below 30). There weren't so many green rounds othewise. And Achim played a 25 in the 4th round and set a new course record. Willi Hettrich completed the excellent results of the Germans with a 5th place (296, ø 32.89). Karl Lakos, the strong senior player from Austria, reached the 3rd place with 284 (ø 31.56), followed by his team mate Jürgen Grill with 287 (ø 31.89), ending up on the 4th place. The best Asian player was Puasombatsak Phasut from Thailand on the 9th place with 314 (ø 34.89).

The women's category wasn't dominated this way by the European. Wakano Hiromi from Japan won with 304 (ø 33.78) in front of Susy Schäppi from Switzerland with 308 (ø 34.22). Chian-Chen Yang from Taiwan ended up on the 3rd place with 317 (ø 35.22).

The youth category was won by Hsiao Wen-Chun from Taiwan with 350 (ø 38.89) followed by Erika Takashima from Japan and Sritoon Uthumporn from Thailand.

There were only three women's teams, each formed of 3 women, and the winner was Japan with 667 (ø 37.06) in front of Taiwan with 729 (ø 40.50) and Thailand with 745 (ø 41.39).

The outcome of the men's team competition looks a bit surprising as none of the European teams could win. The men's teams were formed of 4 men. The winner was Thailand with 869 (ø 36.21) followed by the two European teams from Austria (888, ø 37.00) and Switzerland (907, ø 37.79).

I think, the Asian Open was a gerat experience for the participants. Parts of this article are based on the reports by Willi Hettrich and Achim Braungart-Zink, who are involved in public relations of the German minigolf federation (DMV) and did some online reporting from Chiang Mai. Thanks to them! They enjoyed the time in Chiang Mai very much.

»Full results, ordered and with teams in detail
»Results from organizer
»Website of organizer
»Golden Elephant Resort
»Chiang Mai
»Reports by Willi Hettrich (in German)
»Photos by Willi Hettrich
»Photos and short reports on DMV facebook website
»Photos by Danny Hense (possibly only with facebook login)

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