An­drew Gioan­net­ti

The Re­pub­lic Bank Caribbean Ju­nior Golf Open Cham­pi­onships was launched yes­ter­day at The Club House, St An­drew's Golf Club, Mo­ka. The in­ter­na­tion­al ju­nior golf cham­pi­onship in con­junc­tion with the T&T Golf As­so­ci­a­tion (TTGA) will be­gin next Mon­day, play­ing over 54 holes on the same course for chal­lengers in groups, 13 years and Un­der, 14 to 15 years and 16 to 17 years old.

Re­pub­lic Bank has spon­sored the Golf Open for nine con­sec­u­tive years be­tween 2002 and 2009, be­fore re­nam­ing the com­pe­ti­tion The Re­pub­lic Bank Caribbean Ju­nior Golf Open Cham­pi­onship, part­ner­ing with the TTGA in an ef­fort to de­vel­op ju­nior golf in the coun­try.Re­pub­lic Bank's gen­er­al man­ag­er-Group Trea­sury, Charles Mout­tet de­liv­ered the spon­sor's ad­dress."Even back in it's ear­li­er days, as the Re­pub­lic Bank T&T Ju­nior Golf Open, this tour­na­ment has al­ways been a main draw, at­tract­ing top notch com­pe­ti­tion from around the re­gion-places like Bar­ba­dos, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Mar­tinique, St Kitts, St Lu­cia, Guyana, the Ba­hamas and Puer­to Ri­co; and as I un­der­stand it, this year will be no dif­fer­ent," said Mout­tet.

He went on to re­it­er­ate Re­pub­lic Bank's dri­ve in as­sist­ing young golfers in the coun­try say­ing: "Our his­to­ry with golf is some­thing that we look back on with pride. Whether it is through our tri-an­nu­al­ly held Re­pub­lic Bank ju­nior golf clin­ics in Ch­aguara­mas, our an­nu­al Lee­ward Golf tour­na­ments or our spon­sor­ship of the na­tion­al ju­nior team, we con­tin­ue to be amazed by the tal­ent we have grow­ing right here."With suc­cess, we keep our eyes peeled for ad­di­tion­al ways what we can help un­lock that po­ten­tial."Some of the best am­a­teur golfers in the coun­try and from the re­gion in­clud­ing Trinida­di­ans Craig Gomez, Bri­an Coak­ley, Ja­son Edge­combe, the Ba­hamas' Ed­win John­son, Ja­maican Jor­dan Lowe and Al­fred Wo­j­cik of St Mar­tin have all con­firmed par­tic­i­pa­tion, promis­ing to stiff­en the qual­i­ty of com­pe­ti­tion.The three-day tour­na­ment will con­clude on April, 20 with a prize giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny.