THE UAE PGA’s three-man team of Simon Payne, Greg Holmes and Craig Martin recorded their best-ever result in the PGA of Europe International Team Championship at the Roda Golf and Beach Resort in Murcia, Spain.

The team, who were generously sponsored on their quest to compete against the cream of Europe’s club PGA professionals by Audi, finished with a six-under par total for 12th place. The event sees each country’s PGA send three club pros to compete against each other over 72 holes, with the two best scores from each team counting each day.

It was the second successive year that Audi had sponsored the team on their quest. In 2006 the recorded their previous best finish of 18th and have improved impressively on that this time around. The prestigious tournament carried a total prize money purse of 35,000 euros, with the winning team receiving 6,000 euros.

“Audi has been strongly involved into Golf worldwide for decades and is currently sponsoring young stars like Lorena Ochoa. Now with the Audi Experience and the Audi SportExperience in particular, which was just launched across the region, we have a great set-up to translate these efforts to Middle East as well. We are proud to be supporting important institutions like the UAE PGA, but are also bringing our own renowned golf challenge – the Audi quattro Cup – for Audi and golf enthusiasts to enjoy,” said Ernst Hasbach, Managing Director Audi Middle East

UAE PGA Chairman, Adrian Flaherty commented, “The UAE PGA team that will participate in Spain this year, was by far the strongest team we have sent since we first entered some seven years ago. That was reflected in the result which was a great performance by the guys. Congratulations to them all.”

It was the team from Austria – Claude Grenier, Florian Ruprech and Gordon Manson ﷓ who took the title for the first time after a dramatic sudden-death playoff against Wales in fading light when St Andrews-born Scot Manson sank a 12 foot putt at the second extra hole.

The two teams had ended their four-round tussle for supremacy on 25 under par.

In one of the closest and most enthralling final-day battles ever in the competition, the two leaders were chased superbly for third place by Italy who were fifteen-under at one staged but fell back a couple of shots.

Final round Scores and totals: Roda Golf & Beach Resort, Murcia, Spain

Par 72 (36:36) 6177 metres

-25 AUSTRIA (Florian Ruprecht 70, Gordon Manson 70 , Claude Grenier 73)

-25 WALES (James Lee 71, Peter Evans 72, Andrew Barnett 67)

* Austria won sudden-death play-off at second extra hole

- 13 ITALY (Mauro Bianco 72, Fernando Pasqualucci 68, Mario Tadini 74 )

-11 GERMANY (Mark Stevenson 73, Paul Archbold 69 , Simon Brown 71)

- 10 IRELAND (Brendan McGovern 73, Robert Giles 69, Leslie Walker 76)

-9 SOUTH AFRICA (William Guy 78 , Morne Botha 69 , Paul Marks 74)

-9 ENGLAND (Michael Nesbit 70, James Whatley 69, Danny Taylor 72)

-8 FINLAND (Harri Murtonen 71, Jyry Peltomaki 74 , Sakari Aho 71)

-8 POLAND (Martyn Proctor 73 , Mike O'Brien 72, Peter Bronson 71)

-8 SWITZERLAND (David Clarke 72, Carl Robinson 7, Giles Hickman 71)

-7 SCOTLAND (Gary McFarlane 74, James McKinnon 75, Sam Cairns 69)

-6 UAE (Greg Holmes 75, Craig Martin 73, Simon Payne 72)

-5 NORWAY (Thomas Hansen 71, Morten Haeras rtd , Thomas Oderud 76)

-4 PORTUGAL (Sergio Ribeiro 73, Nelson Cavalheiro 72, Almerindo Sequeira 73)

-4 HOLLAND (Bronno Valk 72, Mark Reynolds 75 , Johan Eerdmans 75)

Level SPAIN (Juan Rosillo 76, Mariano Aparico 75, Alberto Ocejo 71)

Level CZECH REPUBLIC (Jiri Nemeck 74, Petr Strougal 72, Jan Juhaniak 68)

+3 DENMARK (Ronny Kert 80, Thomas Nilsson 74, Henrik Larsen 84)

+11 SWEDEN (Petter Jonsson 76, Niclas Bjornsson 77, Ricard Thornqvist 76)

+14 CROATIA (Miro Raic 77, Darko Ljubanovic 79, Neno Smoljenivic 71 )

+ 18 SLOVENIA (Andrej Kraljic 73 , Janez Grilc 76, Rok Pisek 74)

+19 MEXICO (Ismael Estrada 84 , Arnulfo Romero 71, Israel Mendez 77)

+25 BELGIUM (Arnaud Beaupain rtd , Matthieu De Lille 79 , Frank Dhondt 78)

+ 27 RUSSIA (Alexey Matrosov 79, Alexander Gruzdov 77, Artem Nesterov 76)

+33 LUXEMBOURG (John Pickford 80, Leon Marks 70, Julien Pallier 76 )

+42 GREECE (Eugenie Papadolpoulos 82 , Harry Zervos 87 , Themis Ginis 79)

+46 BULGARIA (Robin McGarr 80, Neil Turley 75, Nikolay Stanew 80 )

+50 SLOVAKIA (Peter Spacek 80 , Michal Oravec 78, Lukas Valuch 82 )