Shot gun for last round !

Italians Alessio Bruschi and Niccolo Quintarreli and France’s Jérome Lando-Casanova and Sébastien Gros were the strongest highlangers at Valle d’Aosta Open. With -9 total the four players lead by one stroke over Swiss Fredrik Svandberg and Italy’s Andrea Zanini.

It tooks more than 30 hours to complete the second round. Heavy rain flooded the golf course yesterday and last players signed for their score around 12h30 today. The weather has been worst and worst during the past 48h hours and it only seems to be ok for this afternoon. The European Tour weather forecast informed the Alps Tour that the afternoon will be playable in this area. As the players from upper circuit are in Crans-sur-Sierre, the situation is about the same.

The cut is fixed at -1 and despite the short course of Cervinia, it proved that cold temperature and very wet conditions of play disturbed players a lot. Last round is to be played with shot gun tee time. The goal is to finish the tournament today as snow is expected tomorrow…

The score can be low and hard to bet on any name among the top 10 to lift the trophy.

By Agathe Séron

Battle between Italy and France on winter day

It was a long, long day. After first round wednesday was suspended at 18h00 due to thunderstorms, once again the rain stopped players to go further on thursday morning at 10:00. Heavy rain flooded greens and course and play only resumed at 15h45 with more than 6 hours delay.

Still 59 players finished their round and Swiss Fredrik Svanberg fired amazing 61, 8 under par for best score of the round and same total. He was leading for a while but a pack of 4 players, two Italians and two Frenchmen aggregated -9 before the night came.

Among them, Sébastien Gos and Jérôme Lando-Casanova, both French and already winner this season facing experimented Alessio Bruschi and rookie Niccolo Quintarelli.

By Agathe Séron

Quintarelli highlander in Cervinia

Italian Niccolo Quintarelli did the job today shooting 7 under par 62 during first round of Valle D’Aosta Open. He was the leader at the club house as the play was suspended for the day due to thunderstorms and confirmed this place as the round was completed on thursday morning.

A pack of 5 players are 2 strokes behind, Italy’s Andrea Zanini and Alessio Bruschi, Scot Kris Nicoll and Northern Ireland’s Richard Kilpatrick and talented Austrian amateur Lukas Nemecz.

This week is a matter of numbers, big, high, small. The course is for sure the highest of the year. Cervinia is more than 2000 meters above the sea and it makes balls fly further. Players should adapt their distance. After 5 weeks off, Alps Tour players are warming up on short 5300 meters par 69 in Cervinia but cold in the morning and tricky tee shots helped the course to resist – just a little bit- to players assaults.

Italian amateur holed in one on the 12th and France’s Emmanuel Mercadier did double eagle on 13th par 5. No less than 431 biridies holed during this first round.
By Agathe Séron