England's supremacy at Qualifying stage

England’s Stiggy Hodgson (picture) and Jack Clarke are co-leaders at Final Qualifying school. Hodgson shot 67, -4 at Toscana golf club and Clarke signed for a 5-under-par-67 card at Punta Ala. France’s Dominique Nouailhac winner of Stage 1 on Toscana course, took third place 2 shots behind after firing 66, -5 in favorite garden. The cut is fixed at +5.

Walker Cup player, Stiggy Hodgson, 21 year old, shown sad face as he sat in the scoring area. The young player from Sunningdale GC had just discovered that the local rules concerning preferred lies were not the same as on the overnight played course. He unfortunatly took a 2 stroke penalty on last hole. But still with this mistake he shot 67 and took first place tie. ” I am very disapointed, Obviously it is not that bad because I am still leading but it is tough. By the way, I played very well. My putting is the best part of my game and I holed 7 birdies on pars 3 and 4. I am not a very long hitter but I have my distance on control so I was closed to the pins quite often. I am going to play the Stage 2 of European Tour in two weeks but I am playing here in case I fail. I want to have the opportunity to play next year and a friend of mine, Farren Kennan (2011 member)told me that Alps Tour was good.”

The other co-leader Jack Clarke, 22 year old, had played one year on Europrotour in 2010. He was Nick Faldo Series U18 Champion in 2007 and finished runner up at the Nick Faldo Asia Series U18.

Dominique Nouailhac is 20 years older than leaders. Nouailhac decided to come back to competition a couple months ago and as he did not have any category left he had to play the qualifying school. Nouailhac won on the Challenge Tour in 2001 and got 3 wins on Alps Tour in 2008. “I love the game and playing tournaments. The schedule for next year is to play full time on the Alps Tour and play Challenge Tour in France if I can enter the field. I played even better today than during first round of Stage 1. I did not drop any shot and I fired 66. It could have been even better because I missed a few putts between 2 and 3 meters.”

After big brain work as the software of Alps Tour failed at the worst moment; the cut was finally fixed at +5 including 75 players. The biggest names on the wrong side are Italian Nunzio Lombardi, 2010 Alps Tour member and winner in France and Scot’s Michael Stewart, 12^th at World amateur ranking. He was playing in the same group as Hodgson and the mistake concerning preferred lies cost him much more. He had to change a par into a double and a birdy into a bogey and that made him miss the cut.

From Toscana and Punta Ala golf clubs
Agathe Séron