Tony Vella was the winner of the Barclays Handicap Challenge tournament at the Royal Malta Golf Club at Marsa.

For the last few years Barclays International have been sponsoring this very popular competition and it was no exception recently when a total of 70 players took to the field to battle it out for the first and second prizes.

The competition takes place over two days in Medal format:

where the object of the game is to go round all 18 holes taking the least number of shots possible and then deducting one’s handicap to finish with a net score. This score is then transferred to the next day and the final aggregate net score then determines the winner.

The Saturday started with beautiful weather and ideal conditions and after a round which lasted nearly four and a half hours the main contenders were Per Bergedhal and Hiro Uechi with an equal score of net 64.

Saturday also saw a rare occurrence on the course when Tony Bonello, who in his own words is a keen but useless golfer, managed to shoot a hole-in-one on 131 metre long 15th.

The second day took its toll on Bergedhal as he just managed to shoot 74 which took him out of contention and Tony Vella moved in with a net 62 which together with his score of 67 on the first day brought him on an equal footing with Uechi who shot 65. Both players ended with a net score of 129. In this case the winner was determined by the better second day score and Tony Vella emerged as the eventual winner.

Barry Watts, the country representative for Barclays International on Malta presented the prizes to the winners and special thanks go to him for his continued support of the game of golf in Malta.