13th Bulgarian Amateur Open Championship
Men’s champion for 2017 became the 15-year-old Hungarian Balint Zavaczki. He finished with a score of 210 strokes just a week after winning the trophy from the Macedonian Open Championship, held again at Pirin Golf. His runners-up became the Greek player Vesileios Koumpakis and another Hungarian – David Rosza. The best ranked Bulgarian was the national player Dimitar Savov, who finished fifth.
In the Ladies’ very tough competition the first place was for Sofia Morozova with 217 strokes – this was her fifth participation in the Open Championship, she was followed by Rivveka Dzhumagulova with 218 and last year’s champion Julia Unterweger with 219.
In the Seniors championship division last year’s winner defended his title – Les Perchevski, president of the Macedonian Golf Federation. For the first time in the Open Championship there was also a division for Super Seniors (60+). The trophy was named after the Israeli Basil Kaufman as a recognition for his years long support for the Open Championship. The first trophy was decided with a playoff between him and Oleg Chernev. On the second additional hole (11th), the Bulgarian made a par and deserved the victory.
There were also winners in five Plate divisions – Gold, Silver, Ladies, Juniors and Seniors. Krasen Atanasov (104 points) won the Gold Plate, Krasimir Martinov (92 points) – the Silver, the Ladies ranking was topped by Louiza Deaconu (81), the young golfer Alexander Abrashev (118 points) won the Juniors trophy, and Dimitar Georgiev (69 points) – the Seniors.
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The 18 years old National Player Asen Mihaylov became the first Bulgarian to enter the Men’s World Amateur Golf Ranking, after winning the 12th Bulgarian Amateur Open Championship. Asen managed to cope with the strong competition in the Men’s Championship division and to win with 220 strokes, one less than the leader from the first round Thomas Burley from Scotland (221). On third place ranked another national player – the 16 years old Ryan Staykov who finished with 225 shots.
In the Ladies Championship Julia Unterweger kept the lead in all 3 days with her stable game and took the Silver Trophy. In the Net Ranking two other national players – Rivekka Dzhumagulova won in the Ladies Championship with 224 shots and Dimitar Savov – in the Men’s with 218 shots.
In the Senior Championship after a very interesting and tense round Les Perchevsky (231) managed to win on the last hole with one shot going ahead of the leader of the second round Alan Rogut (232) and the leader from the first round Andy Wright (233) finished third.
Bulgarian Krasen Atanasov showed a stable game in the Gold Plate Championship and kept his score for all 3 rounds – 38-38-38 points and took the Gold Plate trophy with the total of 114 points.
Second finished Simeon Denkov with 110 points followed by Hamish Grey with 107 points.
The Silver Plate Championship was even more exciting – the leader from the first 2 rounds Dimitar Zhelev (110) lost with 4 points from Petko Tonchev (114) who was second in the second round. On third place finished Todor Kostov with 109 points.
In the Ladies Plate Tzvetelina Popov showed a great game and kept the lead in all 3 days to win the trophy with the great 90 points.
In the Junior Plate we witnessed another beautiful performance of a Bulgarian player – Denis Staykov kept the lead and didn’t give any chances to his teammates to reach him. He got the trophy with the great score of 99 points followed by Itai Cohen from Israel with 91 points and Alexander Abrashev with 88 points.
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