Rutherford & Vlcek are the Players and International Players Champions

As is traditional, on the Friday before the British Open the Players Championships and International Championships were held at Strokes Adventure Golf.
The format of the tournament is a qualifying round for all participants with the top 8 (Players) and top 4 (Internationals) progressing to the Knockout Matchplay round to determine the finalists.

ROUND 1 – QUALIFYING ROUND
With over 34 players taking part in the Players Championhip and all 7 of our internationals playing in the International Players Championship, the competition was fierce to qualify for the next round.
After round 1 the guaranteed qualifiers were Matt Dodd (31), Andy Exall (32), Marc Chapman (33) and James Rutherford (33). Five other players all scored 34 in their round which lead to a 5 way play-off. Unfortunately it was Foxes James Hollinrake who missed out on the next round with Chloe Allart-Bennett, Shelley Cooper, Cindy Kukielka and James Shaw all making the cut.

In the Internation Players Championship, there was also a play-off to determine the final member of the top 4. Christian Adler & Patrick Riener both scored impressive 31s to guarantee their spots and Daniel Vlcek scored a 32. Tom Loftus and Jan Hedstrom played off for the final place, with Tom Lofus acing hole 5 to take the spot.

ROUND 2 – MATCHPLAY

The matchplay games were all incredibly close and particularly the game between Strokes’ Matt Dodd and Foxes Captain went to the wire with James needing an ace on hole 8 in sudden death to defeat Matt.
The results from the other matches were as below:-

Matt Dodd vs. James Shaw – James Shaw wins
Andy Exall vs. Shelley Cooper – Shelley Cooper wins
Marc Chapman vs Cindy Kukielka – Marc Chapman wins
James Rutherford vs. Chloe Allart-Bennett – James Rutherford wins

Christian Adler vs. Tom Loftus – Christian Adler wins
Patrick Riener vs. Daniel Vlcek – Daniel Vlcek wins

FINAL ROUND 

The finalists for the Players Championship all put in fine performances in what was a very closely fought game with James Shaw, Marc Chapman and James Rutherford all level going into Hole 12, but it was James Rutherford that pulled away acing holes 13, 14, 16 and 18 to post a 32 and take the title.

In the final round of the International Players Championship Daniel Vlcek similarly shot a 32, beating Christian Adler by 4 shots to be crowned International Players Champion 2024.

You can find further details on the scores for the event here