186 players from 13 different countries playing in 6 divisions. That’s one way to sum up the 2023 Konopiště Amateur Open presented by Discmania. But the truth is the Konopiště castle park wrote so many different stories last weekend that it is impossible to share all of them with you. It’s something you need to experience first hand.
Our building crews spent almost 3 weeks building the course, mowing everything, cutting some extra branches and put it into the best shape possible. No matter the rain, no matter the heat, no matter what. We were ready. And the players were ready as well.
The Clash of Lefties in MA1
The Konopiště Open course is a bit better for lefthanded players, yes. But we did not expect what happened at all. Karla Vahar, an Estonian shot the hot round during round 1 and showed everyone that he wants his prize – the Wild Card for next week’s EuroTour event held at Konopiště given to the best male player of the whole event.
This is the first 1000+ rated round I have ever played.
Karla Vahar about his round 1 performance
Before round 2, there were few people close behind him, but they fell off during the windy Saturday’s round. Round 3 lead card consisted of Karla Vahar (EST, lefty, -6), Tom Grobecker (GER, -1), Christian Plesker (GER, -1) and Tomáš Mozola (SVK, lefty, even par). The conclusion of the story was about to unfold.
Vahar had a nice cushion, but there was something that clicked in Mozola’s game during the final round. He made threw perfect drives, made very long putts and was very hard to keep behind. He caught up with Vahar on hole 10 and they went back and forth for the rest of the round. Mozola had to sink several C2 putts to get strokes on Vahar. He got ahead. Than the Estonian caught him with a birdie on hole 17. They were tied before hole 18. Vahar’s drive went to C2, Mozola’s went to C1. Vahar attacked with everything he had. But missed. And he also missed the comebacker. Chip in, put the disc inside the basket. Tomáš Mozola, a 15 year old from Bratislava, Slovakia is your 2023 Konopiště Amateur Open presented by Discmania Champion! Congratulations Tomáš!
The MA1 last round play-by-play video will be published at IGRAcz Discgolf Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@IGRAczDISCGOLF.
Czech Battle in FA1
Go Czechia! Round 1 results said it clearly. Good distance is a very important skill when the short layout is almost 3 kilometres long. The longest throwers were on top of the leaderboard. Barbara Ráčková (CZE, +4), Kristýna Jurčíková (CZE, +5), Teresa Poučová (CZE, +8) and Jarmila Havířová (CZE, +11) were the round 2 lead card. It quickly became obvious that the battle for the second EuroTour wild card is going to happen between Ráčková a Jurčíková, who went back and forth for most of the 2nd round, never getting away from each other by more than one stroke. They carded in a R2 score of +4 for Jurčíková and +6 for Ráčková, which meant they switched places compared to round 1. The rest of the lead card was Teresa Poučová and Nathali Palencia Martin.
None of them started very well in round 3, but Jurčíková managed to clean her game up, scored a beautiful birdie on hole 6 and quickly got far ahead of Ráčková, who unfortunately struggled for the rest of the round. In the end, the 12 year old phenom from Nový Jičín, Czech Republic – Kristýna Jurčíková – won the 2023 Konopiště Amateur Open presented by Discmania by whopping 11 strokes over the 2nd place and she has earned the right to play the EuroTour Konopiště Open this week.
Round 2 of the FA1 division lead card will also be published at IGRAcz Discgolf Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@IGRAczDISCGOLF.
The Winners and Full Results
As said, there were 6 divisions so we owe you the winners of the rest of the divisions as well:
- MA1: Tomáš Mozola (SVK)
- MA3: Piotr Lisowski (PL)
- MA40: Pavel Částek (CZE)
- FA1: Kristýna Jurčíková (CZE)
- FA3: Katrin Ellmaier (GER)
- MJ15: Nikolai Wotan Heel (AT)
Full event results can be found here: https://www.pdga.com/tour/event/65107
Round 2 photos: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.632466442247738&type=3
Round 3 photos: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.633460492148333&type=3
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