Malton golfer Matt Hazell wins national heat at Loch Lomond (From Gazette & Herald)
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Malton golfer Matt Hazell wins national heat at Loch Lomond
1:50pm Wednesday 5th September 2012 in Sport
Golfer Matt Hazell, pictured at Malton & Norton Golf Club, who is to compete in the League To Dubai grand final
Malton & Norton Golf Club player Matt Hazell will be treated as a high-roller after sterling success in Scotland.
The nine-handicapper sealed a place in the League To Dubai grand final in December as the prize for winning the national heat at the renowned Carrick course at Loch Lomond.
Construction worker Hazell totalled 35 points to win the stableford competition beating 15 other players to join the rest of the regional heat winners in the grand final.
There he will be treated to four days’ exclusive stay in the Radisson Blue hotel and the 36-hole final at the Nick Faldo-designed Emirates course.
Some 14 years a member of Malton & Norton GC, from where he lives barely a drive from the Welham Road-based club, the 44-year-old Hazell is no stranger to Dubai.
For the past few years he has gone out to the gulf state to watch the European Tour’s lucrative climax, the Race To Dubai, which is held each November.
He said: “I’ve been there before and played golf with some of the stable lads at the nearby racecourse, but to go there and play in the final of the League To Dubai – I’m absolutely chuffed.”
Meanwhile, Simon Dyson returns to the scene of his last European Tour conquest tomorrow.
The Malton & Norton Golf club star will be defending his KLM Open title in Hilversum, where he lifted the Dutch championship last year for the third time.
The triumph was also Dyson’s sixth on the European Tour.
The world number 48 goes into the tournament buoyed by completing all four rounds of last week’s Omega European Masters in Switzerland.
He finished tied with six others in 27th place to earn a cheque of almost 19,000 euros.
But if it had not been for a calamitous run at the turn of the last round at the Alpine course of Crans-sur-Sierre, where he amassed four bogeys in five holes, Dyson would have comfortably bagged a top ten placing.
As it was his final round one-over-par 72 marred an otherwise steady first three rounds of 69, 70 and 67 – the first and third rounds each including eagles.
