Practice round for the company scramble

Posted on by Alexander Rose

Every year there is a big trophy to win and I have to say, I really like winning that. I managed to put my name on the trophy already but there should be many more years we’d be able to take that home with us as a team, if you’d ask me.

The company invites for an annual golf tournament which is played in the Texas Scramble format, a real fun team format to enjoy every minute on the course. And boy, has this been fun in the last years.

In order to really make a move and get our hands on the (rather cheap) trophy, taking into consideration that we have a +0.8 hcp colleague (not in my team), we decided to practice early to increase chances. We penciled in at least two sessions, one serious range session with chip and putt, and another on-course session, pretty much play along each other, maybe talk tactics here and there how to tackle the course in the scamble.

Needless to say that some couldn’t make it to both sessions, and also needless to say that, once you’re on-site, you somehow lose the concentration, the focus on winning the trophy. Therefore I have to admit that the putting session was really short, chipping was short also, range session was OK, the round of golf actually was just 12 short holes only to be frank and we played quite poorly. The other blokes had golf clubs in their hands the first time since like September 2018 or so.

What indeed has been quite good these days, has been the food and the drinks in the clubhouse after our stressful, exhaustive training in preparation to reclaim the Deutsche Börse Golf Trophy.

Wish us luck! We might need it!

UPDATE (on tournament day):
Tournament has been cancelled due to inclement weather—heavy rain and thunderstorms… I live not even 10 minutes from the course, I haven’t seen a single rain drop today. That gives us more time to practice though. Yay!

Deutsche Börse golf tournament at Hof Hausen

Posted on by Alexander Rose

As an employee at Deutsche Börse I was invited to take part in the 2nd Deutsche Börse Golf Day last Thursday. Last year I had to cancel because I couldn’t make it from London to Frankfurt. This year however I had big hopes for a great day. Mainly because I wanted to get to know more people within my company who play golf, but as well because the course was new to me, the game mode was also and just because currently I’m really crazy about golf.

The course we played is the Golf Club Hof Hausen vor der Sonne, even for German clubs a very long and unusual name. It’s situated in Hofheim, just outside of Frankfurt. And it’s a proper members’ club – that’s what you realise when you drive through the parking lot and your car is basically the smallest and oldest between all these brand new Porsches, BMWs and Audis. Membership costs you 30,000 EUR I was told later!! Absolutely crazy, but unfortunately very common in and around Frankfurt. But anyhow, the people I met were very friendly and the club/course was in very good condition – and that’s basically what we were after that day.

The tournament was played as a Texas Scramble. Two of my playing partners I already knew, the other one was a colleague which they obviously knew very well and hence we had great fun right from the start. Right from the tee box 1 to be precise, where we started the round with a sip of Whiskey.

The nice thing about a Texas Scramble is that you think and act as a team, you discuss course management strategy, putt lines and approaches. You feel a bit more pressure on the one side because your effort counts for the team. On the other hand, if you don’t sink that putt, there are three other guys who might. That was really the best part of the tournament.

Golf Club Hof Hausen vor der Sonne is a very nice venue and worth the play if you are around. The practice areas are huge, the course is not overly spectacular but far from boring and the restaurant serves German, Italian and Indian cuisine – a little weird but delicious combination.

After all it was a great day. In the end – the last 4 holes I’d say – the weather got worse and we had to get out umbrellas and rain gear, but we had loads of fun. Score-wise we scored a 5-under par for the team, 6 birdies, 1 bogey. That were 41 gross points and would have put us on top of the leaderboard, but as it was an amateur tournament the net points counted and there we ended up 3rd place with 57 net Stableford points. Not too shabby at all!!

I can’t wait for the next Deutsche Börse Golf Day!