Finland off to a flier in World Cup Qualifier

9/26/2008

Finland’s Roope Kakko and Mikko Korhonen lead the Omega Mission Hills World Cup European Qualifier by one shot after firing an eight under par 64 in the opening fourball round in Poland.

The Finns lead Canada's Wes Heffernan and Graham DeLaet and the Czech Republic’s Jakub Kucera and Ondrej Lebl, who carded opening 65s to put themselves in joint second place one shot ahead of the Portuguese duo of Tiago Cruz and Ricardo Santos.

With the top-three finishers qualifying for the Omega Mission Hills World Cup in China in November, Kakko and Korhonen, both regulars on the Challenge Tour, were pleased to have made a solid start to their campaign at the Sierra Golf Club in Poland. 

Playing in the last group, the Czech Republic duo of Jakub Kucera and Ondrej Lebl dovetailed well to shoot a solid 65. Lebl commented: “Every time I missed Jakub made the shot and every time he missed, I was able to make a shot. We enjoyed playing the fourball format, our playing partners were great guys and we had a lot of fun out there.”

Jakub added: “I was really happy with the way I played up until the 13th hole but then we were told we were behind time and had to hurry up and was rushing after that and hit some bad shots. But we held it together so we are happy”.

Kucera and Lebl are quietly optimistic about their chances of making it all the way to China. The key will be keeping the ball on the short grass on the challenging Sierra Golf Course layout.

Leaderboard – Round 1 – fourballs:

64 –  Finland (Roope KAKKO / Mikko KORHONEN)

65 –  Canada (Graham DELAET / Wes HEFFERNAN)
        Czech Republic (Jakub KUCERA / Onrej LEBL)

66 –  Portugal (Tiago CRUZ / Ricardo SANTOS)

67 –  Belgium (Gerald GRESSE / Laurent RICHARD)

68 –  Switzerland (André BOSSERT / Martin ROMINGER)

71 –  Iceland (Heidar BRAGASON / Bjorgvin SIGURGERGSSON)

72 –  Norway (Paul NILBRINK  / Kristoffer REE)
        Poland (Jakub OSSOWSKI  / Marcin STELMASIAK)
        Slovenia (Janez GRILC  / Damjan MURGELJ)

75 –  Israel (Itamar COHEN  / Oren GERI)

76 –  Greece (George DIAKOU  / Themis GINIS)

79 –  Croatia (Darko LJUBANOVIC  / Miro RAIC)

Source: European Tour