Horton team wins 22nd Annual ABGR-AMEX Golf Tournament

RIYADH: ARAB NEWS
Scott Horton captained a team of mixed nationalities to resounding victory in the 22nd Annual ABGR-AMEX Golf Tournament at the Dirab Golf & Country Club on the outskirts of Riyadh.
As Texas Scramble events go low scores are par for the course and Horton's crew couldn't have gone lower on the day as they returned a gross score of 63 for a winning net score of 50 including the team handicap of 13.
The champion team which played on the second day Friday of the two-day four ball Texas Scramble format competition shot nines of 30-33 in a near flawless round that featured 9 birdies, six of them in a hot front nine and three on the trot from the first hole.
With Horton on the team were his fellow American Peter Sherwin, Australian Anthony Jason Palise and Sri Lankan Adrian Kishan Rosairo.
Three strokes back in second place was the team of British Simon Stoddart, which won on countback from a quartet skippered by Irish Paul Confrey after the sides tied on 53.
Stoddart and teammates Michel Christopher Stieg and Michael Christopher, who are both British, and Keith Rodney Simonetti of the US tallied gross score of 66 which Confrey and the rest of his team namely British John Ryan, American Andrew Sullivan and another British Jonathan Mortell matched. Both teams played off 13 handicap and their tie was broken by comparing scores on the last six holes with Stoddart team on 22 and Confrey's on 23.
Also, Stoddart squad provided what was easily the tournament's highlight when it eagled not one but two holes on par-5 9 and par-4 14.
The tiebreaker for fourth and fifth positions at a score of 54 this time only went back to the last 9 holes with the foursome of Stuart Halliday, Stuart Clark McLellan, Syed Shafiq and Matthew West in fourth and the quartet of South African Mark Campbell, Chombe Olweny, James Schuler and Keith Jaffe in fifth. Halliday and Co.'s backnine effort was 29 while Campbell's side had 34.
The longest drive awards for men and ladies went to Hassan Ahmed and Liz Kennedy respectively. Winning the closest to the pin award for men was Teymour Alireza. None won the same award for ladies.
To cap the event that brought to the fore the partnership between the American Business Group in Riyadh chaired by Rick McCabe and American Express was the dinner-awards night on Friday.
The 22nd edition of the event attracted 38 teams and 152 players.
Helping make the tournament another big successs were: platinum sponsors Hertz, GAMA Dental Clinic; gold sponsors Marriott Riyadh Hotel, Meed Express; silver sponros Atheeb Holding, Dirab Golf & Country Club, Al Nakhla Residential Resort, Beatiful Home; bronze sponsors Vinnell Arabia, UPS, ExxonMobil, DHL, Boeing and hole sponsors Fairmont Riyadh, Hill International, Royal Air Maroc and Al Qalzam Fisheries.