Sergio Garcia won the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters Challenge Match for the second straight year, as his four-man team beat sides led by his Ryder Cup team-mates Henrik Stenson and Justin Rose.
‘Team Garcia’ recorded a score of 25.4 in a Texas Scramble format, beating ‘Team Rose’ (27.4) and ‘Team Stenson’ (29.2).
Each team comprised one pro and three Qatari juniors, and Garcia was reunited with Sami Qush, who was part of the Spaniard’s winning team last year. Sixteen year old Abdullah Khamis and Ahmed Al Mutawa, 13, completed the winning team.
“We had a lot of fun again and the players did really well. It’s nice to win, but it’s more important to see that the young guys have been taught good basics and are enjoying the game,” said Garcia, the defending champion.
“I remember Sami well from last year, and he’s made some good improvements. All the guys played well today, and it’s great that the Qatar Golf Association has a growing youth programme.”
Qush, 16, said he had improved a lot in the past 12 months – and said Garcia had also played better than last year.
“This is my second year winning the trophy. Sergio is one of the best players in the world, and one of my favourite golfers. He gave me some tips, so that will be useful for me,” the youngster said.
“I feel like I played much better than last year and Sergio also played much better than last year, so hopefully he wins the Qatar Masters again this year.”
Rose was participating for the first time in the Challenge Match, which was inaugurated last year, and was full of praise for his team, which featured Saoud Al Muhanadi, Arnab Jain and Sheik Abdulrahman Al Thani.
“It was a lot of fun. It was great to get out there with the juniors. They’re very keen on their golf and they play it in exactly the right way,” said Rose, the 2013 US Open Champion.
“You can tell they’ve been brought up really well with the etiquette and traditions of the game, and they’re playing exactly as they should. They were a lot of fun to be around and they holed a lot of good putts, which saved me a lot of grey hair today!
“They know the greens really well, and I was learning some of the lines from them. We had a really good time, and everybody played their part. Everybody contributed a nice shot or two and made a difference to our score.”
Team Stenson featured Abdulrahman Al Naimi, Abdulrahman Al Dahaimi and Nada Mir.
Stenson, Rose and Garcia are the highest-ranked players at this week’s Commercial Bank Qatar Masters, which gets underway on Wednesday at Doha Golf Club.
