Tom to Tee up With Top Teenager

A Surbiton golfer is heading to Abu Dhabi to play alongside Italy’s young superstar Matteo Manassero after winning a competition organised by HowDidiDo Media and Golf in Abu Dhabi.

Tom Allen, 28, won a trip out to play in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship pro-am with the 18-year-old Manassero, who became the youngest golfer to win a European Tour event when he secured victory in the 2010 Castelló Masters Costa Azahar aged just 17.

Allen, a two-handicapper who plays his golf at Hampton Court Palace GC, was the first name pulled out in a prize draw by HowDidiDo – Europe’s largest golfing community – and Golf in Abu Dhabi and he won return flights with Etihad Airways; three nights’ accommodation at the world-renowned Emirates Palace hotel; two VIP hospitality passes to the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, which takes place at the outstanding Abu Dhabi GC from January 26-29; and a spot in the pro-am competition.

Allen said: “For a golfer, it really is the trip of a lifetime. I had to read the congratulatory email several times before it sank in and I can still scarcely believe I will be playing with Matteo next week in such a fabulous setting. It’s an amazing opportunity and I am hugely grateful to HowDidiDo for offering such an incredible prize. Hopefully I’ll shoot 66, beat the future Ryder Cup star, and win the pro-am.”

HowDidiDo boasts a membership of more than 300,000, and contains a database of handicaps, results and scores for in excess of 1,200,000 men and women. Standard membership is free and the plethora of statistics available allows any golfer to analyse and compare performance with other players at their own club or across the network.

The service is also available free to any golf club – and consequently its members – which uses the market-leading CLUB2000 software from Club Systems International which is in place at 1,500 UK clubs.

■ For more information on HowDidiDo contact [email protected]
www.howdidido.com