City golfers head for Morocco
A pair of Exeter golfers are preparing to travel to Morocco for a six-night, five-star, expenses-paid break, where they will compete for a prestigious national amateur pairs title, after qualifying from a regional final at Manor House GC, in Castle Combe, Wiltshire.
Andy Rogers, 48, and Sandy Urquhart, 23 - both members at Fingle Glen GC - have won through to the grand final of the Morocco Matchplay, powered by HowDidiDo (formerly the HowDidiDo National Matchplay Championship) to be held in February.
They will enjoy complimentary return flights to Morocco, six-nights' accommodation at the stunning, five-star L'Amphitrite Palace hotel, in Skhirat - with its own Atlantic Ocean beach - and five rounds of golf, including one on the prestigious Red course at the Robert Trent Jones-designed Royal Golf Dar Essalam, which hosted the last Moroccan Open in 2001, won by Ryder Cup star Ian Poulter.
Participants will also receive a welcome reception and cocktail evening, and a final night presentation gala dinner.
Four-handicapper Rogers, a warehouse manager, was competing in the regional final for the fourth year, as he explained.
"I've won two previously and come third today to qualify. This is the first time with Sandy but I have won it before with my previous playing partner," he said.
It's a brilliant golf course but we played the first four holes in strong rain - we were out first - and it only stopped briefly around the sixth. The back nine wasn't two bad but the course was playing its full length, there was no bounce."
Yet, but for a last-minute decision by his partner, Rogers may not have been competing at all.
Rogers added: "I got let down by two partners and the day before entries closed I stuck Sandy's name down without telling him. I phoned him up and told him I'd entered us in two national competitions - I said ‘I've paid, do you want to play?' We've played eight matches in two competitions and won all eight."
A thrilled Urquhart, a sports therapist who plays off one, added: "This is my first attempt, so I'm absolutely delighted. We were both pretty solid throughout and it was definitely a team effort."
Four competitions culminate at the grand final, sponsored this year by the Moroccan National Tourist Office: singles, pairs, mixed pairs and senior pairs, with a total of 32 golfers, from across the UK, ultimately fighting it out for the titles. Each pair will have played up to four qualifying rounds merely to reach the regional final, with the knockout rounds taking place between June and September, and the regional finals in October.
HowDidiDo is Europe's largest golfing community, holding in excess of 21 million rounds of golf along with the handicaps, results and scores of more than 1,300,000 UK golf club members. Around 2,000 golf clubs currently use the HowDidiDo system, allowing members to analyse their game and compare performance with other players - at their own club or across the entire HowDidiDo network. It is also used for official CONGU handicapping and competition results.
More than 450,000 golfers currently use the HowDidiDo website. What's more, the brand is also the driving force behind two of the best supported amateur golf events in the UK: the annual Titleist Order of Merit - the largest golf event of its kind in the country - and the Morocco Matchplay, powered by HowDidiDo.
It is also currently engaged in a widespread campaign with the BOSS Watches H1 Club to reward all its registered golfers with a luxury timepiece should they record a hole-in-one during an official club competition. Since the programme launched in April 2013, more than 4,000 HowDidiDo golfers have received a limited-edition watch worth £225.
The Morocco Matchplay, powered by HowDidiDo, takes place from February 8-14, 2015.
