De­spite be­ing over­looked by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Golf As­so­ci­a­tion (TTGA) se­lec­tion com­mit­tee for na­tion­al team as­sign­ments for 2025, one of the coun­try’s most promis­ing young golfers, Zi­co Cor­reia, made a strong im­pres­sion in the Unit­ed States as a stu­dent-ath­lete at Web­ber In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty at Bab­son Park, Flori­da, USA.

Cor­reia, a world-ranked play­er, fea­tured in sev­er­al tour­na­ments for the Web­ber War­riors, de­liv­er­ing con­sis­tent per­for­mances. His most no­table ear­ly-sea­son show­ing came at the In­vi­ta­tion­al at In­nis­brook, where he post­ed a three-round to­tal of 229 in Sep­tem­ber 2025.

At the Jupiter In­vi­ta­tion­al, Cor­reia, a mem­ber of St An­drew’s Golf Club in T&T, was part of a strong team ef­fort that saw Web­ber In­ter­na­tion­al se­cure a sec­ond-place fin­ish, with the team end­ing three un­der par over the event. He has been one of the back­bone play­ers on the team since join­ing Web­ber; un­for­tu­nate­ly, Zi­co, due to an in­jury, de­cid­ed to give up this spot, think­ing of what was best for the team and not his per­son­al goals at the last tour­na­ment for the spring se­mes­ter, a match play event.

Be­cause of his un­selfish ges­ture, the coach re­ward­ed Cor­reia af­ter recog­nis­ing his ma­tu­ri­ty and self­less­ness to as­sist in and of­fered him a spot on the coach­ing staff at the three-round, two-day event, help­ing guide the team to their vic­to­ry. Web­ber In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty, a part of the NA­IA Di­vi­sion 1 sys­tem, this se­mes­ter rose from 32nd to 8th place, with Cor­reia be­ing an in­te­gral part of that ac­com­plish­ment, al­low­ing them to be con­sid­ered for Na­tion­als in the fall of next year, 2026.

The TTGA and Cor­reia have been em­broiled in dis­agree­ment for al­most two years now, in which he has been the sub­ject of al­le­ga­tions of on­go­ing vic­tim­i­sa­tion and un­fair prac­tices by the gov­ern­ing body, which has pre­vent­ed Cor­reia from wear­ing the na­tion­al colours.

Cor­reia, who rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go from age nine to 18 at both ju­nior and se­nior lev­els, has long been re­gard­ed as one of the na­tion’s most con­sis­tent per­form­ers. Over the years, he earned out­stand­ing re­views from team man­agers and past mem­bers of the TTGA board dur­ing re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments. In­clud­ing Trinidad’s best golf­ing pro, Stephen Ames, who has men­tored Cor­reia.

How­ev­er, since an al­leged ver­bal in­ci­dent in­volv­ing for­mer TTGA pres­i­dent and ex-po­lice of­fi­cer Wayne Bap­tiste, Cor­reia has re­port­ed­ly been side­lined from na­tion­al se­lec­tion and rep­re­sen­ta­tion from oth­er re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al se­lec­tions, in­clud­ing the most an­tic­i­pat­ed ‘Latin Amer­i­can Am­a­teur Cham­pi­onship’ (LAAC), de­spite work­ing te­dious­ly to be­come the 2nd low­est-ranked play­er in the world. Af­ter be­ing au­to­mat­i­cal­ly se­lect­ed by the LAAC com­mit­tee, he was pur­pose­ly dis­crim­i­nat­ed against by the TTGA’s cor­re­spon­dence to the LAAC ad­vis­ing them of his un­avail­abil­i­ty.

The ap­par­ent ex­clu­sion has per­sist­ed un­der the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion led by Pres­i­dent Robin Lewis, who was elect­ed on May 29, 2025.

Since be­gin­ning his col­le­giate ca­reer in 2024, Cor­reia, who is home en­joy­ing the fes­tive sea­son with his fam­i­ly and friends, said he is just look­ing for­ward to the 2026 sea­son.