Carmen Sagarra and Paolo Quirici win 2021 Swiss Hickory Open
Sept. 6, 2021
By Rick Adams
Carmen Sagarra, playing from the Hittnau Golf & Country Club in eastern Switzerland, won the women’s division, and PGA teaching professional Paolo Quirici from Golf Club Lugano in the southern Ticino region won the men’s open division at the Swiss Hickory Open held at Golf Club Limpachtal in Buchegg, Aug. 26-28.
Thirty-seven hickory golfers, representing 17 different golf clubs, participated in multiple categories.
Leveraging a long, Daly-esque backswing, Sagarra posted a two-day total of 192, seven strokes in front of runner-up Susanna Weber. Susanne Lauber earned the women’s net title with 67 points.
Described as Switzerland’s most successful professional golfer, Quirici played on the European PGA Tours from 1989 to 2001, then won the US Professional Hickory Championships in 2013 and 2014 and the World Hickory Championship in Scotland in 2013. Quirici’s two-day total of 144 matched par (70-74). He won by 12 strokes over young Andri Hausamman (best amateur), who had taken Quirici to the final hole in last year’s Swiss Hickory Match Play on the same course.
The men’s best net in the open division was Joe Lauber, founder of JBL Hickory Golf clubs. Nick Hofer led the Stableford men’s competition with 35 points, four ahead of Maurus Lauber and Helmut Betz. Betz was best net Stableford.
The host organizers were the ‘Gentle Hickory Golfers Limpachtal’, a passionate group who also organize the Limpachtal Hickory Open in October each year.
Golf Club Limpachtal features 14 holes with water and severely undulating greens, as well as the longest hole in Europe and the only par 6 in Switzerland.
The 2022 Swiss Hickory Open will be staged in late September at Golf Club Montreux, the first time the event will be held in the “Suisse Romand” region of western Switzerland.
Enjoy the SHO video below, titled, “Enjoy the Walk.”
Carmen Sagarra, 2021 Swiss Hickory Open Women’s Champion
Paolo Quirici, 2021 Swiss Hickory Open Men’s Champion