Silver medal for Team Malta at European Shield Championship
Team Malta composed of Nicholas Beck, Andy Borg, Ruud Critien, JJ Micallef Verelst managed to take silver in the fourth edition of the ETSC organised by the European Golf Association and hosted by the Croatian Golf Federation at the Riverside Golf Club recently.
Twelve other countries fielded a men’s team. These were Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia and Ukraine.
The team qualified third in the stroke play qualifier with an aggregate score of +11. Croatia with an aggregate of +1 led followed by Greece with a +9. The other countries making it to the match play rounds were Hungary, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Liechtenstein and Lithuania. Malta’s third place meant that they had to play Cyprus in the quarter finals of the knockout stages.
Despite having a young team, Cyprus were not a pushover and Malta had to fight hard to win two out of three matches to proceed to the semi-final round drawing Liechtenstein in the process. In the previous two editions Malta lost its games at this stage of the tournament but this year the team prevailed and with another two wins booked their place in the final. Their opponents – Croatia.
Led by one of the strongest players in the field, Croatia prevailed on the day and secured gold for the host country. Having placed fifth in the first edition of this Championship, followed by two successive bronze placing, silver this year was a sound result for Maltese golf.