At the end of July it was finally time for one of the absolute highlights of the year for us hickory players, namely the Swedish Hickory Championship. This year we played at Kevinge, the name of the place where Stockholms Golfklubb is located. Stockholms GK has a proud tradition and was founded back in 1904, as Sweden's second golf club. After having competed and played at various places around Stockholm, they built their own course in Kevinge in the early 1930s. The course was ready for play in 1932.

New for this year's championship was that the men played 36 holes with a cut after 18 holes. 90 players were registered for this year's competition and 72 of them went on to the second day's play. The rest played at Djursholms GK for the newly instituted "Hickory Jug".
Among the favourites in this year's championship are the trio of Per G Nyman, Adam Mednick and the German Australian Perry Somers. After 18 holes played, last year's winner Per G Nyman, with a history on the European Tour, had taken the lead with a solid round of 73, 3 over par. Nyman was followed by three players with 75 strokes, namely Perry Somers, Mathias Lindeberg and Sune Werkell. Sune's father Elis Werkell, by the way, is a multiple Swedish champion. So Sune, who lives right by the course, knows it as well as his own back pocket. Adam Mednick was one shot behind them.
It was thus set for a close battle during Saturday's game. Per G Nyman from Växjö held off and finished a total of five strokes over par, just two ahead of Mednick, who had a strong birdie spurt on Saturday. Rickard Larsson from Borås finished third.
In the women's championship, Britta Nord from nearby Bro-Bålsta won. Britta is also German and Finnish champion. Britta's winning score was 92 strokes, 22 over par.
In the senior class Leif Johansson from Ågesta GK won. Leif is a real hickory veteran who has played for many years.

Perfect fitness - tough, fair, fun and exciting course

The course in Kevinge was in excellent condition for hickory games. The summer's drought had made the course deliciously hard and golden brown, and the greens had to be watered with a water hose to keep them reasonably green. In the ruff and semiruff, the grass was appropriately hard and completely yellow, which could make for some exciting bounces. The Kevinge course is not very long, but that doesn't make it easy. It's a tricky course that puts the most finicky player to hard work. It's all about improvisation and, not least, positioning yourself in the right place on both the tee shots and the approaches to the softer greens. If you ended up on the wrong side of the flag at the putt, all you had to do was touch the ball with the putter and then pray to God that it would stop somewhere near the cup. In short, tough, but a lot of fun and excitement! The course is well worth a visit with the hickory clubs. Not least to have lunch afterwards in the pleasant dining room and then go into the lounge to watch the club's enjoyable collections.

PS. There was apparently another championship in the Stockholm area - at the same time... On some bridge something?! DS.

Don't forget to book your place at next year's Hickory Championship, which, incidentally, will be played in the medieval Hanseatic city of Visby(vi; "pagan sacrificial site", village; "city").

Delicious pictures......

For each competition we write about, we take pictures and you can easily check out all the great photos in full size by clicking on any of the image switches in the right menu bar, then you will be taken to the Flickr photo site, where we have linked and collected all the photos.

Then click on the image. Browse and enjoy manually or start the slideshow by clicking the ►button between Newer and Older. Alternatively, select other images/competitions via "sets", by double-clicking on By Hickorygolf. There you can also directly click on Slideshow in the upper right corner.

Quotes:

"It is nothing new or original to say that golf is played one stroke at a time. But it took me many years to realize it."
~ Bobby Jones

Image copyright © Hickory & Linksland