The rounds at Vuosaari were played in blazing sunshine and temperatures around 26 degrees on both days, with just enough wind to make things tricky. The greens were quite good for the time of year but there seemed to be variation in speed from green to green which added another variable to the calculations. Some of the pin positions were also pretty nasty, especially on Sunday, the most difficult being the 16th where it was impossible to get the ball to stay anywhere near the hole on the approach shot.
The competition was won, once again, by former European Tour player Mika Piltz (Pickala). Mika's rounds of 73 and 69 were good enough for a two shot victory over Jani Michelsson of St Laurence (74,70) with 2012 Mid Tour Rankings winner Keijo Jaakkola (Tapiola Golf) in 3rd place (75,70).
That was quite a struggle... pretty inconsistent ball-striking all weekend and not too many parts of my game felt comfortable at all. Both rounds were a real struggle from beginning to end and there was a lot of messy holes out there... there were also some good moments, especially some real "get out of jail" par saves.
On Saturday I managed to survive a whole lot of adventures to be in a good position at +1 after 14 but it was then disappointing to finish 5-5-5-5.
On Sunday the ball really went all over the place, I had to hit provisional balls 5 times and was within 1m of the out of bounds line on the 3rd, 8th and 9th without ever going out. I took my birdies on the down wind par five holes (1st and 13th) after having a 9 iron and 8 iron to the green for my second shots and holed a pretty ridiculous curling putt from 15m on the 16th and hitting it extremely close on the difficult 17th for two bonus birdies at the end.
Overall, considering how little control I had over where the ball went, this was a pretty good result for me.
The next Finnish Mid Tour event is in 3 weeks time at Meri-Teijo but the week before that a number of Finnish players (and one Scottish one!) will take part in the EGA European Mid-Amateur Championship at Pravets GC in Bulgaria. Niko and Andy will be there representing Kytäjä.