Qualifying School Stage Two comes to a Thrilling Close

The European Tour Qualifying School Stage Two came to a close in thrilling fashion, with sudden-death play-offs at all three Spanish venues determining the last places at next week’s Qualifying School Finals.

Four players were forced to play extra holes at the Club de Golf Oliva Nova, Oliva, Valencia, seven at El Bosque Golf and Country Club, Chiva, Valencia, and a further seven at Emporda Golf Club, Girona.

If any one player summed up the drama of the occasion, it was Scotland’s Murray Urquhart. The 31 year old began the day at El Bosque Golf and Country Club in a tie for 62nd place on one over par, but forced his way into the play-off by carding a final round of seven under par 65. Urquhart then ensured his place at the Finals by matching Irishman Colm Moriarty’s birdie at the first hole of the seven man play-off for three Finals places.

Spain’s Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano took the other spot to join winner Mathew Woods and 29 other qualifiers at the Finals, with Englishmen James Holmes and Chris Rodgers, Sweden’s Olle Karlsson and Gregory Molteni from Italy respectively qualifying as second, fifth, eighth and 11th Alternates.

The players at Emporda Golf Club – where Scotland’s Euan Little topped the leaderboard with a 20 under par four round aggregate of 264 – received a welcome boost before teeing off in the sudden-death shoot out. The number of places on offer to next week’s Finals had risen from 29 to 30 following a withdrawal from the Finals by one of the 79 already exempt players.

That allowed the French pair Jean-Baptiste Gonnet and Julien Van Hauwe to qualify through the play-off alongside the English duo of Darren Leng and Shaun P Webster, leaving Argentina’s Mauricio Molina, Welshman Craig Williams, Sarel Son-Houi of France and Colombia’s Manuel Merizalde to take the respective third, sixth, ninth and 12th Alternate spots.

At the third Stage Two venue, the Club de Golf Oliva Nova, Frenchman Jean Louis Guepy took the 29th and final spot in a four man play-off, leaving England’s Liam Bond, Eric Giraud of France and the English pair Jamie Little and Yasmin Ali as first, fourth, seventh and tenth Alternates. Norway’s Oyvind Rojahn took first place with a 21 under par total of 267.

Courtesy of www.europeantour.com