Mohammedia/Morocco – “It’s really very, very cool! I did not expect a win beforehand. Not even after the first round, although I was already in the lead then,” says Max Schmitt with delight after his triumph. Ultimately, it was a confident victory from start to finish from the man from the Rhineland, who continuously led the field with a 67 on the first day and an outstanding 64 second round. While the Moroccan Younes El Hassani, just one stroke behind Schmitt after 36 holes, dropped back five places on the final day, the Frenchman Olivier Rozner and Pedro Figueiredo from Portugal battled for second place. They couldn’t catch the player from Rheinhessen golf club up though, especially as Max Schmitt not only played totally faultlessly in the final round but he was even able to record another three birdies on his score card. “My biggest strength is that I hit the balls accurately. And that is what this course demands,” explained Schmitt, who would like to take part in more Pro Golf Tour tournaments in 2017. “It’s an entirely different ball game playing with professionals. I hope that I’ll be one of them next year too!”

The tournament winner from the last two years, Ben Parker from England, was unable to achieve the triple and defend his title again. With an overall result of seven strokes under par he finished the event in shared fourth place, tying with Max Griesbeck from Duisburg.

Thanks to his shared second place, Portuguese Pedro Figueiredo takes over rank 1 in the Pro Golf Tour Order of Merit with 10,654.17 points ahead of Swiss Marco Iten, who has 10,583.12 points in his account. In less than two weeks the tournament schedule will continue when the players appear at the Open Ocean 2017 from 23 to 25 March and play for the Open Tazegzout 2017 title shortly afterwards from 29 to 31 March. Both tournaments are being held in the Moroccan coastal town of Agadir.