Press conference

Press release from 23. 1. 2013

The Czech golf public will, once again this year,  experience a very special event – after last year’s premier D+D REAL CZECH CHALLENGE OPEN the Kunětická Hora Golf Resort located near the city of Pardubice will welcome top European professionals to the second year of the tournament. The tournament which is part of the European Challenge Tour series will be held from 3rd  to 9th June 2013. The RELMOST company, the tournament promoter, will thus be fulfilling its promise made the year before and is establishing an annual tradition of organizing a Challenge Tour tournament series in the Czech Republic. It is prepared to build up on this tradition in the coming years.

After the excellent experience the promoter had the previous year, they have chosen to confide hosting the D+D REAL CHALLENGE CZECH OPEN 2013 again to the Kunětická Hora Golf Resort. For top European golf players, the Kunětická Hora Golf & Spa hotel not only guarantees sufficiently comfortable facilities and conditions, but mainly excellent playing surfaces. After all, the quality of the golf course is personally overseen by the chairman of the Czech Green keeps Association, Michal Voigts! The thoroughness with which the court is prepared, did not go unnoticed by many players even during the tournament the year before. Many of them expressed their wish this year to go back there.

Thanks to the successful premiere last year, and successful negotiations with leading representatives of the European Tour for this year’s second annual tournament, the promoter has managed to get a much more attractive dates than in the previous year. The owner of the promotion company,  Petr Dědek stated: “Dates in June guarantees a much broader starting field – this year’s fight for overall victory will be attended by a total of 156 players as opposed to 114 players from last year. It is very important for the attractiveness of the tournament. “Top Czech professional players will, however, due to wider competition have a significantly more difficult position than in the previous year. I wish to repeat last year’s success, when an entire quartet Czechs went through the cut.

The total subsidy for the tournament is € 160,000. As in the previous year, the tournament will be televised. Training rounds will take place from 3rd to 4th June. Wednesday, 5th June is reserved for the PRO-AM tournament.

The actual tournament will have two qualifying rounds on 6th and 7th June. 60o f the best players will go through the cut in the fight to win in the tournament, with two final rounds. The overall winner of the tournament will be announced on Sunday, 9th June 2013.

Andreas Harto from Denmark was the winner of last year’s premiere D + D REAL CZECH OPEN CHALLENGE with a score of  -24 under par,  just three shots ahead of his countryman Joachim B. Hansen. The German golfer, Max Kieffer, set an excellent course record of 63 strokes played in the second round. Czech golf registered significant success in terms of participation of four Czech players in the final rounds. The most successful of them was local boy and fresh professional Ondřej Lieser who came in 33rd.

Simultaneously, with the launch of preparations for this year’s tournament, negotiations have began with promoters of other European Challenge Tour tournament for changes in the playing cards, so, as of February, selected Czech professionals will appear on the starting lists of similar tournaments abroad. Interesting destinations include Kazakhstan, Kenya, Portugal – Madeira, Scotland and many others. This is one of the main goals of the godfather of the event Petr Dědek – to make Czech golf more visible at the European level, to give young players the chance and the opportunity to establish themselves on the international scene.

For RELMOST, a.s. – Tomáš Gebrt