BMGA British Doubles Tournament

Minigolf Report – BMGA British Doubles Tournament in Warwick

On Saturday 17th May 2008 Luton Minigolfers Richard and Emily Gottfried joined forces to compete in the BMGA British Doubles Minigolf Tournament at the Adventure Golf course at St Nicholas Park, Warwick. In total fourteen teams competed in the event, which was won by the Tunbridge Wells Team of brothers Andy and Trevor Exall.

The format of the tournament was 12-hole Matchplay, with one member of the team taking the first shot and then alternating with their playing partner on any further shots if necessary. This format is quite different to the normal singles stroke play format used on the BMGA Tour, but made for some exciting matches.

The fourteen teams were split into two groups for the Round Robin stage of the tournament in which Richard and Emily played six matches. Here they achieved three wins, two losses and a draw, giving them a total of 10 points. This saw them in 5th place in their group and 7th overall. In the next round of knockout matches they faced the team of Alan Norman and Gareth Holmes and were defeated by three holes. This defeat saw them finish the tournament in 11th place.

Following their recent performances in tournaments both Richard and Emily have moved up the rankings in the BMGA Order of Merit. Richard has risen to 25th in Great Britain (from 34th) and Emily, who was previously unranked now lies in 44th place.

Commenting on the British Doubles Richard said “The format of the tournament was different to what we are used to playing, but it made for some interesting play and you can really see how sometimes you leave yourself a very tough second shot when you have to watch your partner playing it.”

He added “Overall I am pleased with our performance, we had some very good wins and some very close one-hole defeats in the group stage and were unfortunate in the knockout round. We took a three on the first hole of our semi-final to go one-down and then Alan and Gareth Aced the next hole, meaning we were playing catch-up all round.”