The Malta Men and Ladies Golf Teams have arrived in Liechtenstein to participate in the 10th edition of the European Team Shield Championship (ETSC).
This participation represents a historical first in the history of Maltese golf as it is the first time that the nation is represented by a female national team. The Ladies Team is composed of Filippa Schulze Doering, Laya Cristina, Elliana Buhagiar and Serena Falzon Manduca who between them have an average age of 14 and a handicap index of 3.0.
Filippa and Laya are stalwart members of Royal Malta Golf Club whilst Elliana and Serena are of Maltese ancestry born in Canada and England respectively with golf being part of their makeup from a young age. The other ladies teams registered for the competition hail from Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Turkey and Ukraine.
The Men’s Team is composed of Andrew Borg, Laurens Schulze Doering, Oliver Stuart and Trent Vella. Trent joins, his newly found friends from Royal Malta, all the way from Australia. The men’s average age is 32 with an average handicap index of +1.3. They will be joined by teams from Albania, Andorra, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The Men’s Team has managed to secure 4 bronze and 4 silver medals over the previous nine editions of this tournament organised by the European Golf Association. The ETSC is being played at Golf Club Gams-Werdenberg situated just across the River Rhine that divides Liechtenstein from Switzerland. The teams start their experience today, Tuesday with a practice round.
On Wednesday, they play an individual stroke play qualifier with the three best scores out of four counting towards the team’s score. The qualifying round determines which 8 teams will proceed to the match play knockout phase of the competition.
