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While Europe's best were being literally blown off the course in Scotland, the cream of the Middle East's young golfers were enjoying the glorious sunshine, the superb Royal Golf Club Montgomerie course and the dream of winning a place in the Faldo Series Asia Grand Final at Mission Hills in China.
This, the Middle East Qualifier, was one of 15 tournaments in 12 different countries scheduled for 2009/10 and over 1,000 young golfers are expected to take part while many more will be introduced to the game.
The Faldo Series is one of many such initiatives globally whose prime objective is to grow the game of golf but now it seems to have grown into the biggest and most prestigious.
It gives players from all walks of life the chance to play on some wonderful courses and have access to facilities that maybe they wouldn't normally get the chance to use. Everyone who enters the events is treated like a Tour Pro for three days and gets the chance to sample what life might be like if they made it on to one of the Pro Tours one day.
The Royal Golf Club certainly pulled out all the stops for the inaugural qualifier here in Bahrain and now, according to Faldo Series representative Tom Phillips, has set the bar for all future events.
The field of over 60 competitors took to the links on Friday and Saturday for 36 holes of the purest form of golf, stroke play, in five different categories in order to find the Middle East's five finalists to represent the region in China next March.
Alongside the main tournament, a Faldo Development Series was held over nine holes for those not quite ready to tackle the full 36 holes and a Faldo Mini Series competition was held on the Royal Golf Club's par 3 course for less experienced golfers as part of Faldo's bid to simultaneously create access to the sport at a grass-roots level and help inspire a future generation of golfers in Bahrain and the Middle East.
The Faldo Series recognises that in this part of the world there is a large expatriate community and therefore divided the field into expat and local residents in order to gain a fully representative field for the finals.
In the girls' sections, Dina Abou El Ela, who flew into Bahrain from Egypt for the tournament, won the Middle East under-21 girls section with 179 (90, 89) and British Royal Golf Club member Suzanna Hobday won the expatriate category with 165 (77, 88), a full 27 strokes ahead of her nearest rival Tabea Lutz of Germany.
Ahmed Al Musharrakh of Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club won the Middle East under-21 boys category with a total score of 154 (81, 73) while his younger brother Hassan Al Musharrakh clinched the under-16 section with 160 (78, 82).
Performance of the week, without doubt though, came from Royal Golf Club member and scratch golfer Daniel Owen. In windy conditions and in a pressurised tournament situation, Dan produced two superb rounds of virtually flawless golf and a two round total of 138 (69, 69), 6 under par and a 14 stroke victory! Truly superb and something that he can be very proud of.
So Dan, Ahmed, Hassan, Suzanna and Dina will be on the plane for Mission Hills next March and we wish them all the very best of luck as they mix it with the cream of Asia's young golfing talent.
As well as spending time with Faldo, over 60 Asian finalists from across the region will compete for five invites to the Faldo Series Grand Final in Brazil plus the opportunity to play in a flagship Asian Tour or Ladies European Tour event for the overall boy and girl champion.
What an experience and I'm sure it will be something that the Bahrain finalists will remember for the rest of their lives!
