Liberec/Czech Republic − "I am very happy about my first win!" With a big smile on his face Benedict Staben presented the trophy of the 9th tournamet of the 2016 Pro Golf Tour season, a trophy well deserved! Playing on the Pro Golf Tour since 2013 the man from Hamburg had his best result so far at the 2015 Red Sea Ain Sokhna Classic in Egypt when he lost a play-off against his fellow countryman Philipp Mejow, the later overall champion of the 2015 Pro Golf Tour.

Apart from that Staben played solid golf but made only a few top 10 results and seldom he was happy with his short game. Driving regularly far beyond 300 meters he often had a chance to make birdie but "there were also too many bogeys on my score card", he says. In the beginning of the 2016 season he started to work with PGA of Germany coaches Jens Weishaupt and Martin Hasenbein, and now, 5 months later, this seems to pay off: "We intensively worked on my short irons and on my chipping and I have learned to play more pars than bogeys." Together with his birdies this brings him up the leaderboard.

In Liberec where the Pro Golf Tour was scheduled for the forst time in its history Staben started with a solid round 73 in terrible weather conditions, 4 degrees and strong wind made tournament golf an extremely tough challenge in the 1st round. But on day 2 with 66 strokes he took the pole position of the field in style and also in the final round (68) he proved that he has "learned to be patient".

The 5000 euro cheque is combined with 5000 points for the Pro Golf Tour Order of Merit what moves Stabens name up to 4th position in the rankings. Antoine Schwartz is the new No 1!

With the Ypsilon CUP by CzechOne the Pro Golf Tour is back to Europe and the tournament schedule will be continued on May 18th with the first round of the Haugschlag NÖ Open.