TEAM MALTA WINS SILVER AT THE GSSE

09/06/2015

The Maltese Golf Team composed of Andy Borg, Daniel Holland and JJ Micallef have managed to place second and win a SILVER Medal at the sport’s first showing in the Games of the Small States of Europe that were held in Iceland last week.

The GSSE is a biennial, multi-sport event organized by and featuring the European National Olympic Committees of eight European small states since 1985. Montenegro – the group's ninth member – was added in 2009. All the countries – Andorra, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, San Marino and Malta – all have a population of less than one million people. The other participating country – Cyprus – is the only exception, however its population was below one million in 1984.

Iceland can boast of 65 golf courses with over 16.000 out of its 329,000 population playing the game. With golf becoming the most popular sport in Iceland over these last 10 years it was quite a simple task for the Golf Union of Iceland to persuade its NOC to include golf as one of the 11 sports for the 16th edition of the GSSE. Apart from the host country and us, the other countries that fielded a men’s team were Monaco, Andorra, San Marino, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.

In preparation for this tournament, Andy travelled to Dublin to play in the Irish Open whilst JJ and Daniel travelled to Iceland and play the course as soon as it opened after the winter months. The Korpa golf course is one of the latest 18-hole golf courses in the country and has already established itself as one of the best golf courses in the country. There are two very different distinct nine holes on the course. The front nine stretch down and run along the beautiful coastline of the Atlantic Ocean with stunning views of Reykjavík´s signature mountain, Esja. A brilliant test of links golf is to be enjoyed on the front nine. On the back nine there are massive challenges that await players with some of the holes played along the river Korpa. The course plays to just over 6000 metres off the white tees and par 71.

Apart from the individual event (aggregate gross score over 72 holes), the tournament also featured a team event with the two best scores on each day aggregated to the team score over four days. With Open Golf being the norm in the Nordic countries, the conditions of the competition also allowed professionals to represent their country and Iceland took full advantage of this and won gold in the men’s individual and team events as well as their counterparts in the ladies’ event.

The first day saw the best scores for Malta returned from Danny (+1) and Andy (+3) whilst JJ struggled with a +11. This placed Malta 10 shots behind Iceland and only 1 shot ahead of Andorra. All our three players improved their scoring on the second day shooting -1; -1 and +1 respectively for an aggregate best score of -2 for the course and only 1 shot more than team Iceland. Andorra struggled on the day allowing our team to open the gap between second and third place by 10 shots. At this stage of the tournament Danny was tied third in the individual event.

JJ came good again on the third day returning a level par score. Danny went out of bounds with his first tee shot of the day after a spectator sneezed and then blew his nose during Danny’s routine. Unfortunately our player struggled from then onwards and came in with a +9 for the day. Andy was looking very good with level par at the end of hole 12 but then he dropped 4 shots in the last six holes. Andy especially but also Danny were disappointed at their scores as they left the 18th green – what they did not realise is that almost everyone had struggled in the prevailing ice cold wind and although Iceland was already running away from the rest of the field, Malta’s performance widened the gap to 13 shots now ahead of Monaco who surpassed Andorra by one shot.

The fourth day was almost a repetition of the third making our three players quite nervous in fear of losing their placing more so as they did not have the privilege to understand that everyone was playing much worse than the third day – including the home team who eventually returned their first over par score for the tournament. In the end Andy’s +4 combined with JJ’s +6 (Danny returned a +9) was sufficient to secure the second place for the tournament 31 shots behind Iceland and 12 shots ahead of Monaco. The team results over four days are highlighted below.

1 Iceland 136 139 135 144 = 554
2 Malta 146 140 146 153 = 585
3 Monaco 150 151 144 152 = 597
4 Andorra 147 149 150 160 = 606
5 San Marino 150 150 148 160 = 608
6 Luxembourg 151 156 148 166 = 621
7 Liechtenstein 168 156 159 166 = 649

I must say that the result was achieved due to the sheer determination of our players and Henning, their coach and mentor throughout the tournament. The success in Iceland marks a highlight of the sport of golf in Malta and the Malta Golf Association, on behalf of our players, is totally appreciative of the support it receives from the golf community as well as from the Maltese Olympic Committee who believed that we could return to Malta with such an achievement.

Our next appointment is the 1st edition of the European Team Shield that will be held at the end of July when Malta will be represented by Andy Borg, JJ Micallef, Ruud Critien and John Micallef Stafrace.