23 teams from 17 different countries gathered at Golf Club Gams-Werdenberg this week for the European Men's and Ladies' Team Shield Championships.
The events, designed for small and emerging golfing nations, were the first ever European Championships hosted by the Liechtenstein Golf Federation despite being contested just across the Swiss border.
With four-player teams, the two competitions follow an identical a format of one stroke play qualifying round and then three days of match play.
The Turkish teams finished the week at the top of the podium in both the men's and women's tournaments.
Number-one seeds from the stroke play qualifying, the Turkish men's team didn't lose a match on its route to a first ever European Team Shield title.
The tournament's outstanding player was Ibrahim Tarik Aslan. The 22-year-old with a handicap of +2.5 played the best round of the week with 67 (-5) strokes in qualifying on Wednesday and won all three singles matches (quarter-finals, semi-finals and final).
In the final on Saturday, he scored the first point for Turkey with an emphatic 8&7 victory over Stefan Rojas. His team-mates also won the doubles and the second singles 1up. The Turks thus celebrated a 3-0 victory against co-favourites Luxembourg.
In the hard-fought match for bronze, the men from Andorra came out on top against Bulgaria 2-1.
The women's event was also a very clear-cut affair in favour of the Turkish team. Deniz Sabmaz (the strongest player of the tournament on paper with a handicap of +2.5) and Zeynep Sualp won the doubles against the Bulgarians with a clear 4&3.
Sude Bay took the second point in the singles with 2&1, earning Turkey a record-extending 4th European Ladies' Team Shield title.
The win also marks the first time a country has managed a 'double' in the European Team Shield Championships in the same year since their inauguration in 2015/16.
In the battle for bronze, the Estonians beat Luxembourg 2-1, even though the women from the Baltic states had to forfeit the doubles match.
