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The 9th International Aegean Airlines Pro-Am Golf Tournament comes to an end
Tuesday, 17-06-2014
Kifisia, June 17, 2014. Two of the most highly esteemed golf courses in Greece and the world, The Dunes and The Bay Course at Costa Navarino, were the scene of the extremely successful Aegean Airlines Pro-Am international golf tournament, now in its ninth consecutive year. The Aegean Airlines Pro-Am tournament was staged for the fourth time at the superb golfing facilities of Costa Navarino!
This is a unique location, combining more than 4,500 years of history, ancient remains of great historic value, an unspoiled, protected natural environment and a host of unique experiences, contemporary and traditional. In short: a world class location comparable with any other of the great destinations in the world of golf. With the two existing and multi-award-winning courses it possesses, the Dunes Course and the Bay Course, Messinia is a number-one destination attracting golfers from all over the world.
This successful AEGEAN tournament, which brought together 240 players, professionals and amateurs alike, from 14 countries, confirms the high standing of the event as a key element in the future of golf in our country. Over the last eight years the tournament has hosted 446 teams and a total of 1,782 players from more than 20 countries around the world, and has offered a total of 590,000 Euro in prize money. It has also established new foundations and paved the way for the future of golf in Greece.
As in the previous years, the tournament was organised with the endorsement of the PGAs of Europe and with the full support of the PGA of Greece and the Cypriot and Hellenic Golf Federations.
This year’s tournament, which was held from June 11 to June 14, 2014, was honoured with the participation of 60 teams, each consisting of one professional and three amateur players. The 60 professional players taking part in this year’s tournament competed on a professional level for €70,000, the highest monetary prize in Europe in a Pro-Am event for professionals. For the third straight year, the Vpar electronic scoring system was used, while there was live scoring transmission and the possibility of using GPS by Golf Buddy.
The pro category of the 9th Aegean Airlines Pro-Am tournament was won, against fierce competition, by the Italian tour player Nicolo Gaggero, who won the cash prize of 7,000 Euro and the Aegean Airlines Pro-Am Trophy. The runner-up was English tour player Liam Bond.
In the team group the first place was taken by the Italians, whose pro player was Nicolo Gaggero, and the runners up were the team from England, featuring pro player Giles Johnson (PGA of Great Britain & Ireland).
In his speech at the Awards Ceremony and Reception, Mr. Theodoros Vassilakis, Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the 9th Aegean Airlines Pro-Am and Chairman of Aegean Airlines, congratulated the first and second place professional winners in individual play and the six winning teams of the 9th Aegean Airlines Pro-Am Golf Tournament on their excellent performances and genuine rivalry. He also expressed his gratitude to all those who embraced the 9th Aegean Airlines Pro-Am and contributed through their efforts to the success of this year's event. Mr Vassilakis dedicated this year’s ceremony to the memory of Captain Vasilis Konstantakopoulos and thanked Mr Achilleas Konstantakopoulos ‘for his worthy efforts to keep alive the vision of his father, and for transforming Messinia into a true magnet for tourists!’
He stressed, among other things, that ‘Through the Aegean Airlines Pro Am we seek to place Greece on the global map of golfing destinations, while promoting the culture and natural beauty of the location among the international golfing community. Golf is a global market with huge potential. There have been many studies that affirm the positive impact of the sport on society and the economy. More particularly, sports tourism in the field of golf reduces seasonality, attracts high-level tourists with money to spend, enhances the range and diversity of tourist destinations and, above all, extends the length of the tourist season. Costa Navarino is the ideal example, being the only resort which opens its doors for the summer season on 1st March each year. Our vision is to see the major development of golf in Greece, and our efforts to realize this objective will be unstinting. To this end, Aegean has this year taken a major step forward in its involvement with professional golf. We are now the title sponsor of the European Tour event, the Aegean Airlines Challenge Tour, which will be held between 3-7 July 2014 (this year and in the two years following) at the Hartl Resort in Bad Griesbach, Germany. We have found a new partner and intend to create new opportunities using this resort in the future’.
AEGEAN also played host at this tournament to the Managing Director of the Hartl Resort Herr Volker Schwartz, as well as the Hartl Resort’s ‘Ambassador’, renowned tour player Tino Schuster!
It also gave to three amateurs of the 1st winning team of the 9th Aegean Airlines Pro-Am the opportunity to enjoy free participation in the Aegean Airlines Challenge Tour Pro-Am. AEGEAN also secured the participation in the Challenge Tour of two outstanding young Greek professionals, Vangelis Ginis and Christos Nikopoulos, with the prospect of offering further support to professional golf in Greece by opening up new opportunities to local players.
In her remarks at the awards ceremony, Minister for Tourism Olga Kefaloyianni said, inter alia: ‘Costa Navarino - the vision and dream of a great Greek, the late Captain V. Konstantakopoulos – is not just a luxury resort, but also a well-established golfing destination in Greece. At the Ministry of Tourism we are striving to ensure the right conditions for development of sustainable tourism, and to offer opportunities to each individual region to grow its tourism in accordance with its competitive advantages and in harmony with its own special characteristics and conditions. In respect, particularly, of the development of golf courses, we are absolutely convinced that these facilities contribute to our objective of facilitating the development of high-quality accommodation and services, and the extension of the tourist season. To this end we have introduced legislation offering new incentives. Our next concern, in this context, will be to facilitate the promotion of golfing complexes, permitting and granting special privileges for the creation of a satisfactory number of golf courses in specific areas.
I should like to offer my heartfelt thanks to the amazing team at Aegean Airlines, and of course Mr Theodoros Vassilakis and Mr Achilleas Konstantakopoulos, for being such valuable supporters of our Greek cities, and for their efforts to actively promote the sport of golf in our country. They have shown unstinting support for our endeavours to make golf tourism a key element among the many attractions offered by Greek tourism’.
Aegean Airlines has demonstrated its unreserved support for the sport of golf without neglecting the needs of our fellow human beings and local communities. In this spirit, this year’s tournament offered €8,000 from the proceeds of sponsorships to the Panayia Kalyviani Nunnery in the Prefecture of Irakleion, Crete, located next to the Phaestus archaeological site.
The Nunnery is home to 70 girls aged 3-18 from all over Greece, and to 55 elderly women, accommodated in specially adapted buildings. The 40 nuns offer the love and protection so necessary to the girls, who are either orphans or from families unable to care for them. The children receive all forms of support from the nuns, as well as outside specialists, to ensure that they grow up to play a happy and useful role in society, with the knowledge and skills they need to make a career for themselves and form healthy relations with the community.
An additional staff of twenty persons assists in the care of the elderly women living in the Nunnery, seeing to the needs of these vulnerable individuals.
AEGEAN actively supports golf as one of the most important forms of alternative tourism, able to contribute to the lengthening of the tourist season and to increasing overall numbers of tourists coming to Greece. We need only look at our neighbours and the other countries of the Mediterranean (Italy, Spain and Portugal), where there are more than 200 golf courses with high levels of golfing activity. Our support for efforts in this field consists in the development and establishment of the Aegean Airlines Pro-Am as one of the best-recognized sporting events in Europe, staged under the aegis of the best-recognized association of golfing professionals in Europe. Since 2011 AEGEAN has been the ‘preferred air carrier’ of the PGAs of Europe, carrying the professional players of the European PGAs at special prices and with special privileges. We should stress that a new agreement has been signed extending AEGEAN’s cooperation with the PGAs of Europe for three more years.
Moreover, since 2007 AEGEAN has been the ‘official air carrier’ of the PGAs of Greece and the Greek Golf Federation, carrying our own country’s professional players as well as all the young people of the team academies free so that they can participate in matches and training sessions.
On the last day of the 9th Aegean Airlines ProAm tournament we organized Football & Golf Clinics in the training ground of the Dunes golf course, with the participation of veteran football players Daniel Batista Lima, Takis Gonias and Jorn Andersen, as well as the champion rally driver Stamatis Katsimis, who, alongside distinguished PGA professionals offered first-rate coaching in football and golf for youngsters, journalists and fans! We saw in practice how these two sports can be connected and promote each other. In particular, in the first part (the FOOTBALL CLINICS), the players of the National Team demonstrated their football skills, while in the second part (the GOLF CLINICS), with the help of PGA golf professionals, the internationals took their first swings and participated in lessons with junior golfers of the Costa Navarino Golf Academy.
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