South African Golfer Wins this Year’s Arctic Open
South African sports enthusiast, Adolphe Botha, represented our country in Iceland, winning this year’s Arctic Open Golf Championship, scoring a total of 79 points over two days.
“A 24-hour golfing experience with a field of over 154 players (40 of whom were foreigners), teeing off at midnight & finishing at 5am is a rare opportunity for many avid golfers,” says Adolphe Botha (41) from Pretoria.
A unique two-day international championship event – in its 23rd year – is open to both amateur and professional golfers. Held at the Akureyri Golf Club, the world’s most northerly 18-hole golf course (65 49 degrees north of the equator), the golfers are challenged with complete sunshine day and night.
“Playing in midsummer at high altitudes in this one-of-a-kind environment was the attraction,” Adolphe says.
Organised through the luxury lifestyle management group, Quintessentially, Adolphe arranged it as a 40th birthday surprise for his fiancé, Marinda van der Merwe, (who played in the women’s tournament).”We were delighted to fulfil such an extravagant request and seeing Adolphe return with the trophy in hand having played in temperatures as low as 2 degrees (the worst seen in 10 years), made it that much more rewarding,” says Charlie Hodge, Quintessentially’s Sales and Marketing Director.
Adolphe will attempt to push the boundaries yet again to break the world record skydiving from another extreme environment, Mount Everest on the 2 September this year.
About The Arctic Open
The Arctic Open is a 36 hole tournament, played under the Stableford point system over 2 days (nights), 18 holes each day. The former day groups are chosen randomly but the second day by score. This championship tournament is open to professional and amateur golfers alike.
The Arctic Open champion will be the participant who has the lowest score with handicap but prizes will also be given for the best scratch score, best ladies score and best Seniors score (age 55+). In the event of a tied score, a sudden death will take place at the 18th hole and repeated until there is a winner. Maximum exact handicap for men is 24 and 28 for women.
A team tournament is run along with the game. Adolphe and his team also walked away with this prize. Participants will randomly be drawn into groups of four. Prizes will be given for the total three lowest scores of every group.