Bad weather prevented a Club Contest from being played at the Czech Masters last year, but this year's battle of the two-man teams on hole 7 finally made its debut. With a nasty wind blowing, the 140 metre long shot was best handled by the local Albatross players.
Fourteen teams met on the tee of the 7th hole on Saturday afternoon to represent their home clubs in the year-long debut of the embedded competition at the European Tour event. Around fifty people gathered with the fans, giving the players the same atmosphere as some of the flights during the main tournament.
A much bigger problem for most of them, however, was a strong wind rather than any understandable nerves. In any case, it seemed that most of the shots, many of which were very good, ended up in one of the bunkers on the right or in the air, with the balls ending up just short of the green.
Only six teams managed to reach the green. Tobias, the younger brother of the Kessler family, hit the best shot and landed just over three metres from the pin, good enough to secure a great win for the Albatross team.
"I hit a 6 iron and it was pretty good for me," Tobias said modestly of his winning shot. According to his older brother Lukas, it was not just the home advantage that made the difference: "It was even more advantageous that we started to the end. It was clear that most of the balls were going to be taken to the right by the wind, so we could prepare for that and know how to play, and Toby did that well."