Maurice Allen, the American player on the Volvik LDET, won the Sweden Long Drivers European Tour Championship beating David Kvist with a best hit of 379 yards after playing four sets in the final. In the first tournament of the season, held at the Bro Hof Slott Stockholm, 48 hitters from all over Europe participated.
Great Swedish quarry
For the second time since the existence of the circuit, Sweden has hosted one of the championships on the tour. Not surprisingly, it´s the homeland of the long drive. Proof of this is that eighteen of the nearly fifty professionals who have competed were from this country. Despite the intense cold weather and grey skies at the start of the day we have seen big hits in the four qualifying groups. The average in the qualifying rounds was around 360 yards.
Group 1 was highlighted by the German Timo Petrasch with a blast of 367 yards, but he couldn´t hold his nerves in the first knock-out rounds against the Danish hitter Fredrik Frost. In the second pairing, the Fin Aleksi Kivini highlighted with a mark of 360y. The Swede Alex Cedervall, who reached the quarterfinals, excelled in the third group against the usual hitters such as Scott Beaven with 359y. And in group 4, Maurice Allen began to show his talents reaching 361 yards.
Direct bombs to the final
From the second round, the two finalists of the championship, Maurice Allen and David Kvist left a good string of excellent shots to take out some of Europe's biggest bombers. Allen, in 1/8, gave the crowd a real treat leaving Temu Pitkanen (FIN), John McSloy (SCO) and Tom Hollingworth (ENG) stranded with 380y , 379y and 398y (the longest ball of the day). The Swede, Kvist has beat South Africa´s Dewald Lubbe and his compatriots Alex Cedarvall and Carl Maxe with big hits of 361y, 380y and 376y.
Four sets to decide the champion
Both players came on merit to the first final of the Volvik LDET season and thrilled the healthy crowd at Bro Hof Slott, who came out in the blistering cold to support the biggest hitters in Europe. Allen and Kvist had to play four sets to decide the champion as in one of the sets both players went OB adding to the suspense. The American triumphed over his opponent after two rounds out of bounds and made a sublime comeback to win with hits of 379y and 359y.
Estonia, next stop…
The second stop of the Volvik LDET circuit will be the Estonia LDET Championship which will be a first for Estonia and which will be held on 1st and 2nd May. The event will take place at the Estonian Golf & Country Club near the capital, Tallinn. See you there long drivers!
