Hellat and Meos defend championship titles. Hellat repeats Niitvälja record
The 25th Estonian Championship was played out today at Niitvälja where both Carl Hellat and Annika Meos succeeded in defending their titles. 17-year-old Hellat completed a particularly impressive final day repeating the Niitvälja record of 67 strokes. His final result of 209 (72, 70, 67) strokes, or ‒7, also repeats his last year’s championship record at Valgeranna. Second place went to Joonas Turba (+2), for whom it was his first male category medal. Third place went to golf coach and the champion of 2013 Egert Põldma, whose final result was +4. The same result was achieved by 16-year-old Markus Varjun, who according to the rules (final result of the two final days) finished at fourth place. Marten Palm (+5) finished fifth, and only 13-year-old Richard Teder (+6) sixth.
Annika Meos who managed a hole-in-one on the opening day, eventually bested her closest rival Karola Soe by nine strokes. The bronze medal went to the champion of 2016 Liis Kuul who finished with an equal result with Anete Liis Adul, but similarly to the male category the better result of the final two days gave the lead to Kuul.
Meos who practices golf aside from her main job became the first player in both male and female categories who has won the Estonian Stroke Play Championship title five times (2012, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018). She also has a silver medal and two bronze medals in her award collection.
The champion of 2007 Martin Toom received the PGA category win and the biggest cheque, outperforming Torel Neider by just one stroke.
