Royal Aberdeen member makes mark overseas

FROM FINLAND TO CYPRUS
WITH NO NINE-IRON
BUT ANDY WON 36-HOLE
AUDI TOURNAMENT

Aberdonian businessman ANDY FOWLIE , lives and works in Finland as a member of the Nokia staff. He has recently won a 36-hole tournament at Aphrodite Hills, Cyprus, which was the 10th event of the Finnish Audi Tour.
In the first of two or three articles over the next few days, Andy, who is a country member of Royal Aberdeen Golf Club and a former North-east of Scotland youths champion, explains what it was all about.

THE AUDI TOUR
The tour is open to all players in Finland over 30 years of age (at the start of the year) who are members of a Finnish golf club.
The tour itself consists of nine regular 18-hole events at some of Finland's best courses, followed by a final 36-hole event at the end of the season in a somewhat warmer climate. The field is typically having around 30 players of handicap 3 or better so it is a reasonable standard.
At the nine regular events the field is limited to 96 players (balloted on handicap if necessary) and those players in the top 30 places receive points for the order of merit (from 100 pts for a win down to 1pt for 30th).
The top five players in the order of merit after the nine regular events qualify for fully subsidised participation in the final event, those players placed sixth to 15th qualify for partially subsidised participation in the final event, any other Audi Tour players can participate in the final if they are willing to pay the full price.
The final is therefore played between the top players over the whole season and because it is a 36-hole event the points available are doubled (200 for a win, etc). The trip for the final is over seven days and includes time for practice rounds, a few days to focus on golf and being ready for the competition itself.
One exciting thing about the final is that it is covered on TV (the Finnish sports channel) so it is interesting to play with the TV cameras in attendance. The result of this will be a 30min highlights programme which should be aired for the first time in the next couple of weeks.

WHAT THE AUDI TOUR IS NOT
It is important to stress that the Audi Tour final is not an officially sanctioned Finnish Mid-Amateur Championship and the winner cannot be referred to as Finnish Mid-Amateur champion (instead "winner of the final of the Finnish Audi Tour").
Similarly the winner of the order of merit cannot be referred to as the winner of the Finnish Mid-Amateur order of merit (instead "winner of the Finnish Audi Tour order of merit 2006”).
Furthermore, although it is open to members of all Finnish golf clubs, in practice all the events are in the southern half of Finland. Although players from the north could compete, it is not very easy for them to do so due to the distances involved.
There is another tour called the Finnish Mid-Tour which is for players over 35 years of age and that similarly has a number of events during the year but it is not officially sanctioned either.
There are not, to my knowledge, any officially sanctioned events of this kind in Finland, so the best that is available is to win the unofficial competitions.

WHAT DID I ACTUALLY DO?
I won the Audi Tour Final and that put me up to fifth on the order of merit for the whole year. So I was the "winner of the final of the Finnish Audi Tour". More details of that later.

ABOUT THE AUDI TOUR REGULAR SEASON
During the regular season (the nine events in Finland) I had one fourth place, two top-10 finishes, three top-20 finishes and one top-30. I had been playing well for the whole year without quite putting together the good scores that I had been doing in practice and had been threatening a couple of times in tournament situations.
After the nine events I was in 14th place in the order of merit, having been in the top 15 for the whole season.
So I qualified for the final and went there knowing that it was my last chance to produce a result for this year (the Kytäjä courses closed for the year on the day we left for Cyprus).

THE BUILD-UP TO THE FINAL
The week before leaving for Cyprus there was a bit of a setback when my nine-iron snapped while playing at Kytäjä. Despite my best efforts it was not possible to get a matching replacement shaft in time so I ended up playing in Cyprus without a nine-iron, which was not exactly ideal.

THE VENUE
Aphrodite Hills, near to Paphos, is an excellent five-star resort with a golf course, spa and tennis academy.
The golf course was a quite challenging par-71 lay-out with some spectacular holes, notably the intimidating par-3 seventh which was 210m (just over 230yd), all carry over a canyon to a small green.
Also interesting to me were the Bermuda grass fairways which were very different to hit from -the ball spun much more than usual. The course was also a "carts only" course due to there being many hundreds of metres between some greens and the following tees, the occasional canyon to traverse, and the temperature between 25 and 35 degrees Centigrade.
PRACTICE ROUNDS
In the practice rounds I played quite well, especially on the first day at Aphrodite Hills. The week’s golf started very nicely with a birdie at the first which was a good sign for the things to come. I had a 71 that day which was the best score of the day by a few shots.
The highlight from this round was an eagle at the 10th hole where I chipped in. In the other practice rounds I played reasonably well, two or three shots behind the best score of each day, and had a good feeling about my game. The biggest problem for the whole week was my putting, which was pretty bad at times.
BEFORE TOURNAMENT STARTED
One thing which I think was a key factor to playing well in the tournament was to take a day off from golf on the day before it started. It was my plan to have a "rest day" in order to make sure that I was not too physically tired and also was mentally fresh for the tournament itself.
It was quite a difficult thing to do when seeing all the other guys going off to play on the Tuesday but I think that it was a very important decision
TO BE CONTINUED