The DOG at the Zuiderduin Masters
Zuiderduin Masters was played last weekend in Egmond on Sea 45 mins north of Amsterdam. It is reguared as one of our majors in the BDO calendar. Pool groups of 3 are made up withwinner of pool going through to last 8 and Knockout stages.
My 1st problem was getting there. Overnight on thursday heavy snow hit Amsterdam and in particular Schipol airport where most of us due to land. On arrival in Southampton Airport i immediatly find a delay. Due to fly at 6:45am the board was saying no info till 7:30am was a worry. Facebook was saying all flights into Amsterdam cancelled. Stephen Bunting was trying to get a lift on facebook to Holland as his flight cancelled. Joe Davis Sussex youth player in the Youth event had same trouble and Steve Douglas was stuck on a broken down play on the Euro tunnel. Deta Hedman was sat on a runway at Luton and had been for 1hr and been told they would be for at least 1 more hour. Mine was still not cancelled i had decided to stay and see f the flight would go. Times of information on flight were put back and put back till eventually at about 10am we were speedily called to the gate to get on the plane. We sat on that for another 30 mins waiting to take off. When we got the other end on a bumpy landing through snow cloud we had to wait for a spoton the standing to get off about the same amount of time. we sat and watched 30 snow moving machines pass our plane trying to re open all 7 runways to return Schipol Airport to fully functional. The other delayed players were having success in arriving too accept World no1 Stephen Bunting who had got lift from Liverpool to Holland and had set off at 11am by car.
Friday evening the tournement started. As the seed in my group i did not have to play till saturday afternoon. With having 2 players who hade never plyed on tv before i decided to go watch their match from the crowd. Id expected to see Michel beat Bryan in the all dutch clash but the younger man Bryan de Hoog won 5-0. That immediatly opened up an can of worms in our group. My match with Michel van der Hoorst was made a bigger match immediatly on saturday afternoon. Michel found some form but a few costly missed doubles saw me loose 5-3. Bryan now well in driving seat needing just 2 legs to progress to the last 8. I felt if i won match and got ranking points, that was a result from the situation id put myself in. I dont know what i worried about as itook a rather rapid 4-0 lead. I then started to think that the winning post was near and lost next leg, but started with a 180 i the last and bought home the match 5-1. Id won Pool F. There were surprises in other groups. Dutchman Rick Hofstra came through pool B beating Lakeside Qualifiers James Wilson and Benito van de Pas. Pool C saw young Dutch starlett Jeffery de Graaf beating Richie George and former Lakeside semi finalist Jan Dekker to top spot. Tony Oshea had won through pool of death beating bth Robbie Green and Darryl Fitton in pool E. Remco van Eijden on his return to tv stage having played at Lakeside few years back won his group beating Wesley Harms and World Champion Christian Kist for pool G. Stephen Buntng came through tough group full of Lakesiders Martin Adams and Gert de Voss with Adams poor run of form continuing loosing both his group matches.
My group win saw me matched up against Tony Oshea. Tony been runner up in the last 2 majors, Lakeside World championships last January and Winmau World masters in October. We were the 3rd quarter final. You go into these matches just hoping to play well. If had a dream start winning the 1st leg with a 156 shot out. That was followed by a 180 start to the next leg. I won set 1 3 legs to 1.At 2-2 in second set i had an aweful leg and Tony levelled the match 1 set all.The next was a 2-2 in legs again and with Tony left with under 100 i shot out 120 to take 3rd set. The 4th set at 1-1 in legs i broke Oshea^s throw. Tony sat on 40 i shot out 121 in a way that Bobby George taught me. 14, treble 19 bull. That put me in the driving seat. I missed 83 to win the match. Tony then unusually missed 64 and i shot 16 for the match and my biggest Tv win and into semi final. Not a lot of time enjoy as in 1.5 hours would go through it all again. In 1st quarter final Alan Norris and Rick Hofstra played a 180 fest match with Alan comng out on top. Quarter Final no 2 saw Ross Montgomery^s experience saw him through against young Dutchman Jeffery de Graaf. Quarter no 4 saw Stephen Bunting beat Remco van Eijden.
The 1st Semi final went to Norris producing some of his best darts he had played on tv. Except when he had missed 24 for 9 darter at Lakeside !!!!!! He had beaten Ross Montgomery a past champion of the Zuiderduin masters to a spot in the final. Semi Final 2 saw me matched up against World No1 and our last major winner Stephen Bunting. If confident as id beaten Stephen 3 weeks before in Northern Ireland Open although over a far shorter format. Id not started the match well with 2 darts at 40 on the wire ,a missed dart at the bull and 2 missed at 36 i lost set 3-0 in legs. the second stephen had the darts and i finally won my 1st leg of the match in 3rd leg of the set but lost the set 3 legs to 1. At this point Stephen was running a 100av and hanging on to shirt his tails was all i could do. I won 1st leg of 3rd set which helped and got to 2-1 in legs and felt Stephen was going off his game a little. He leveled at 2-2after another missed dart at the bull. I had the darts got to double 1st. Missed 60 shot and with Bunting sat on 32 expected the worst. But he missed and i shot double 5 in 2 darts to take the game on. With Stephen having darts in 4th set was not going to make a mistake again. With me 2-1 down in legs and stephen sat on 16 he took the match. Id played against guy on top of his form and come up slightly short but was well happy to finally show the game iv got on tv. More ranking points for Lakeside 2014 and head into Lakeside sat ranked 45 in BDO World rankings.
The ladies event was won by Anastasia Dobromylova from Hollands Aileen de Graaf. The youth event was won by Quinn Wester another top young player to come off Dutch youth convayer belt. He Beat Belgiun Kenny Neyens.On way home we had more travel problems with our taxi ride of 40 mins taking an hour and twenty minutes, leaving us belting through the airport to make the flight. Yep we had delay of 40 mins when we got there too.
My 1st problem was getting there. Overnight on thursday heavy snow hit Amsterdam and in particular Schipol airport where most of us due to land. On arrival in Southampton Airport i immediatly find a delay. Due to fly at 6:45am the board was saying no info till 7:30am was a worry. Facebook was saying all flights into Amsterdam cancelled. Stephen Bunting was trying to get a lift on facebook to Holland as his flight cancelled. Joe Davis Sussex youth player in the Youth event had same trouble and Steve Douglas was stuck on a broken down play on the Euro tunnel. Deta Hedman was sat on a runway at Luton and had been for 1hr and been told they would be for at least 1 more hour. Mine was still not cancelled i had decided to stay and see f the flight would go. Times of information on flight were put back and put back till eventually at about 10am we were speedily called to the gate to get on the plane. We sat on that for another 30 mins waiting to take off. When we got the other end on a bumpy landing through snow cloud we had to wait for a spoton the standing to get off about the same amount of time. we sat and watched 30 snow moving machines pass our plane trying to re open all 7 runways to return Schipol Airport to fully functional. The other delayed players were having success in arriving too accept World no1 Stephen Bunting who had got lift from Liverpool to Holland and had set off at 11am by car.
Friday evening the tournement started. As the seed in my group i did not have to play till saturday afternoon. With having 2 players who hade never plyed on tv before i decided to go watch their match from the crowd. Id expected to see Michel beat Bryan in the all dutch clash but the younger man Bryan de Hoog won 5-0. That immediatly opened up an can of worms in our group. My match with Michel van der Hoorst was made a bigger match immediatly on saturday afternoon. Michel found some form but a few costly missed doubles saw me loose 5-3. Bryan now well in driving seat needing just 2 legs to progress to the last 8. I felt if i won match and got ranking points, that was a result from the situation id put myself in. I dont know what i worried about as itook a rather rapid 4-0 lead. I then started to think that the winning post was near and lost next leg, but started with a 180 i the last and bought home the match 5-1. Id won Pool F. There were surprises in other groups. Dutchman Rick Hofstra came through pool B beating Lakeside Qualifiers James Wilson and Benito van de Pas. Pool C saw young Dutch starlett Jeffery de Graaf beating Richie George and former Lakeside semi finalist Jan Dekker to top spot. Tony Oshea had won through pool of death beating bth Robbie Green and Darryl Fitton in pool E. Remco van Eijden on his return to tv stage having played at Lakeside few years back won his group beating Wesley Harms and World Champion Christian Kist for pool G. Stephen Buntng came through tough group full of Lakesiders Martin Adams and Gert de Voss with Adams poor run of form continuing loosing both his group matches.
My group win saw me matched up against Tony Oshea. Tony been runner up in the last 2 majors, Lakeside World championships last January and Winmau World masters in October. We were the 3rd quarter final. You go into these matches just hoping to play well. If had a dream start winning the 1st leg with a 156 shot out. That was followed by a 180 start to the next leg. I won set 1 3 legs to 1.At 2-2 in second set i had an aweful leg and Tony levelled the match 1 set all.The next was a 2-2 in legs again and with Tony left with under 100 i shot out 120 to take 3rd set. The 4th set at 1-1 in legs i broke Oshea^s throw. Tony sat on 40 i shot out 121 in a way that Bobby George taught me. 14, treble 19 bull. That put me in the driving seat. I missed 83 to win the match. Tony then unusually missed 64 and i shot 16 for the match and my biggest Tv win and into semi final. Not a lot of time enjoy as in 1.5 hours would go through it all again. In 1st quarter final Alan Norris and Rick Hofstra played a 180 fest match with Alan comng out on top. Quarter Final no 2 saw Ross Montgomery^s experience saw him through against young Dutchman Jeffery de Graaf. Quarter no 4 saw Stephen Bunting beat Remco van Eijden.
The 1st Semi final went to Norris producing some of his best darts he had played on tv. Except when he had missed 24 for 9 darter at Lakeside !!!!!! He had beaten Ross Montgomery a past champion of the Zuiderduin masters to a spot in the final. Semi Final 2 saw me matched up against World No1 and our last major winner Stephen Bunting. If confident as id beaten Stephen 3 weeks before in Northern Ireland Open although over a far shorter format. Id not started the match well with 2 darts at 40 on the wire ,a missed dart at the bull and 2 missed at 36 i lost set 3-0 in legs. the second stephen had the darts and i finally won my 1st leg of the match in 3rd leg of the set but lost the set 3 legs to 1. At this point Stephen was running a 100av and hanging on to shirt his tails was all i could do. I won 1st leg of 3rd set which helped and got to 2-1 in legs and felt Stephen was going off his game a little. He leveled at 2-2after another missed dart at the bull. I had the darts got to double 1st. Missed 60 shot and with Bunting sat on 32 expected the worst. But he missed and i shot double 5 in 2 darts to take the game on. With Stephen having darts in 4th set was not going to make a mistake again. With me 2-1 down in legs and stephen sat on 16 he took the match. Id played against guy on top of his form and come up slightly short but was well happy to finally show the game iv got on tv. More ranking points for Lakeside 2014 and head into Lakeside sat ranked 45 in BDO World rankings.
The ladies event was won by Anastasia Dobromylova from Hollands Aileen de Graaf. The youth event was won by Quinn Wester another top young player to come off Dutch youth convayer belt. He Beat Belgiun Kenny Neyens.On way home we had more travel problems with our taxi ride of 40 mins taking an hour and twenty minutes, leaving us belting through the airport to make the flight. Yep we had delay of 40 mins when we got there too.