[C]arus Green golf club member, Adam Chapman, has won the Tour Championship in the Hotelplanner.com PGA Europro tour in Portugal, collecting prize-money of more than £22,000. The tournament, which took place at the Oceanico Faldo Course in the Algarve, welcomed more than 50 players from around the world for the 54-hole strokeplay event.
Adam led from the front against an extremely competitive field, finishing with rounds of 68, 68 and 71 to score a total of 207. His second-round produced some stellar play. He produced a hole-in-one on the second hole, and birdied the following three holes, finishing with a four-shot lead going into the final round, at eight under par. In a competition with birdies hard to come by (less than 400 on the first two days of the tournament), Adam has collected 14 in total. On his fantastic hole-in-one, he said:
“I saw my playing partner hit an eight-iron short just before, but I still hit it with an eight-iron, perhaps just slightly fuller. When it popped in, it was high-fives all around! It took me a few minutes to process what was going on, but it felt great!”
Adam’s final round started with two bogies on the first six holes but he found his form to finish the competition nine strokes under par to take the title against Min Kyu Kim and a guaranteed Challenge Tour spot for the 2018 season.
“I’m absolutely delighted with my win,” said Adam, who has been coached by Carus Green’s PGA professional, Andrew Pickering, for more than two years. “For the first time in my life I was speechless and still think I’m dreaming! I was due a big win and with the weather windy, conditions really suited my play. I’d like to thank the entire team at Carus Green and in particular, Graham Curtin, Maurice Cotter and Adam Lynn, who has been helping me with my putting using Carus’s new S.A.M putting lab, and of course, a huge thanks to Andrew Pickering!”
“We are all thrilled for Adam on his tremendous achievement and his hard graft this season has clearly paid off,” added Andrew. “We’ve been working on elements of his game such as his putting, which has really improved and on-going swing work. Adam has been driving well all year and hits the ball so well off the tee; that has partly enabled him to successfully compete at this level.”
