The 65th Annual Caribbean Amateur Golf Championship held in Providenciales, August 1st to 5th, 2022, at the Royal Turks & Caicos Golf Club with luxury accommodation generously provided by The Ritz-Carlton Resort, organized by Roberto Stipa of Desarrollos Hotelco Group is now complete.
With an enormous amount of support from the amazing TCI community the five-day championship event was hugely successful. During the Opening Ceremony held at the golf clubhouse on August 2nd the eight visiting Caribbean nations, including Bahamas, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, and USVI were warmly welcomed by His Excellency Governor Nigel Dakin, by Mr Alvin Parker, Director of the TCI Sports Commission and Fraser Dods, President of the TCI Golf Association.
With the practice round also completed that day, the golf tournament was declared open and the highly competitive three round medal play championship event was ready to begin. The course conditions were superb, thank you to the course superintendent, Tim Mack, and his greenkeeping crew who worked diligently during each day and the weeks prior to ready the course for this elite event.
The Caribbean Golf Association President, Sydney Wolf from Puerto Rico and the CGA executive team were responsible for the course marking set-up, tournament reporting and officiating. The pin placements provided ample challenges for most competitors and the narrow fairways combined with the prevailing trade winds offered course management encounters for the long ball strikers with the talented players with good course management coming out on top.
This annual championship is primarily a team event with the men vying for the coveted Hoerman Cup and the women competing for the George Teale Trophy. With the World Amateur Golf Ranking recognizing this as a major amateur championship, awards are also presented to the top players. The Proshop Staff, led by Sean Wilson and Dave Douglas, worked hard organizing the golfers and team coaches each day delivering impeccable golf services throughout the week as the team players arrived dressed in daily tournament uniforms and the proud coaches displayed flags on their service golf carts in support of their teams.
The Food and Beverage Staff at #19 Bar & Restaurant, led by Paul Slattery and Ronnie Rigby, offered outstanding services throughout the week starting with a delicious Caribbean Buffet for the Opening Ceremony and menu options during the week. With several months of preparations to organize and manage this event, the TCI Golf Association Tournament Committee along with the dedicated Volunteers were very pleased to watch the Awards Ceremony on August 5th where Puerto Rico successfully defended the Hoerman Cup, and the lovely Jamaican woman’s team captured the George Teale Trophy this year.
The individual awards went to Kelvin Hernandez of Puerto Rico who shot stellar rounds of 72, 68, 70 and Holly McLean of Cayman Islands with scores of 75, 72, 73. Team TCI finished the week in 7th place out of the nine competing nations in the Hoerman Cup and 5 th place in the George Teale Trophy. In the individual divisions our top player, 15-year-old, Kurt Rivers finished in 14th place and 67-year-old JP Srinark finished in 32nd place out of 50 players.
Top TCI woman player, Andrea Todd completed the event in 9th place out of 20 in the woman’s individual division. Congratulations to all involved, in particular our very generous Sponsors and the R&A, without this combined effort hosting this golf championship would not have been possible. The event culminated with a Sunset Sail send off for the visiting Caribbean nations, sailing across Grace Bay with a chance encounter with our very own JoJo! A beautiful finish to an incredibly successful week by all accounts.
Executive committee member Mark A Fulford commented ” it was good seeing so many young amateur players from the Caribbean playing in the tournament this year. Regrettably TCI did not field a young team due to us not having a youth golf program established in TCI, a priority area the TCIGA is embarking on establishing. We are grateful for the current TCI team who is indeed young at heart!”
