Roy Steinberg returns to win Israeli Open Championships

Laticia Beck, 14, wins first place in the National Women's Championships.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
golf 88 (photo credit: )
golf 88
(photo credit: )
In the Israel Open Golf Championships that ended over the weekend after four days of competitions, the young generation, students of the Caesarea Golf Academy, won the trophies. Roy Steinberg, 16, of Caesarea, studying this year at a golf academy in Florida, came to Israel in order to take part in the competition and was declared champion. Steinberg, who was also the Israeli champion in 2005, finished with 308 strokes. Laticia Beck, 14, also of Caesarea, the national women's champion for the past two years, won first place once again, and after three days of competitions finished with 216 strokes. Nissim Znati of Or Akiva, won the seniors' (50+) event champion, while Asaf Cohen, 12, also of Or Akiva, was crowned youth champion. Dor Hacham, again of Or Akiva, finished two strokes behind Cohen. Also last week, a match was held among the club professionals, including a battle between the champion of the 16th Maccabiah Games, Itamar Cohen, and Andy Namirof, the 17th Maccabiah champion. Cohen, who recently returned to Israel after playing golf for four years in the US, set a new record at the Caesarea Golf Club with a 66 in an 18-hole game. Cohen's final score was 282, compared with Namirof's 293. The championships were attended by approximately 200 golfers from nine countries: Israel, US, France, Belgium, Switzerland, South Africa, Czech Republic, Turkey, China. The championships also included a hole-in-one competition in which each of the participants tried to hit the ball in one stroke into hole 10, which is 169 meters. The winner would have won a Rolex watch worth NIS 100,000. However, none of the competitors succeeded and the watch remained the property of Euro-Asia, the local importers of Rolex and the major sponsor of the Israeli Open Golf Championships.