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Monday, August 11, 2025

Richards cops third Tobago Golf Open title

by

Clayton Clarke
20 days ago
20250722

Chris Richards Jr won the To­ba­go Golf Open Cham­pi­onships Di­vi­sion ti­tle for the third straight year when he scored 221 at this year’s edi­tion of the tour­na­ment at the Plan­ta­tion Golf Course, Mag­dale­na Beach and Golf Re­sort in Low­lands, To­ba­go from Ju­ly 18-20.

Richards Jr fin­ished ahead of Zi­co Cor­reia (229) and Ross Ramkissoon (231).

The Pointe-a-Pierre Club mem­ber came from be­hind as he was in joint fourth af­ter the first round of play with 76, along with Alex Kan­goo. Cor­reia took the ear­ly lead (74) with Ramkissoon and Jer­seem Boodram (75) were next, tied for sec­ond. How­ev­er, Richards Jr re­bound­ed on the sec­ond day with 73 to move ahead (149). Cor­reia slipped sec­ond on 155 af­ter he tal­lied 81. Ramkissoon al­so dropped to third (155) with a score of 81. The Cham­pi­onships Flight play­ers teed off last on the first two days and had to suf­fer the mis­for­tune of the mid-af­ter­noon rains, which forced them to seek shel­ter af­ter the com­ple­tion of the first nine holes. The top flight golfers had to cope with more in­clement weath­er af­ter they head­ed for the 18th and fi­nal hole on each day.

How­ev­er, on the third and fi­nal day, Richards Jr, who is this coun­try’s high­est-placed play­er on the World Am­a­teur Golf As­so­ci­a­tion (WA­GA) Rank­ings at 312th, showed his pedi­gree by hit­ting 72 on Sun­day to amass 221 and se­cured the ti­tle by eight shots over Cor­reia (73 on the fi­nal day).

Ramkissoon was a fur­ther two strokes be­hind Cor­reia (231) in third with Boodram (238) in fourth.

Richards Jr was hop­ing to match his 202 scores in 2023, when the tour­na­ment was last held, where he shot a course record of 60 on the fi­nal day. The 2023 Pan Amer­i­can and Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Games com­peti­tor was named the top male play­er at this year’s Caribbean Am­a­teur Gold Cham­pi­onships Hoe­man Cup in Bar­ba­dos from Ju­ly 1-4.

Boodram, who is the third-best lo­cal play­er on the WA­GA Rank­ings (1555th), is this coun­try’s lone golf rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the Ju­nior (Un­der-23) Pan Amer­i­can Games in As­cen­sion, Paraguay (Au­gust 9-23).

Clint Al­fred and John Hol­ly record­ed com­fort­able vic­to­ries in the Se­niors (Over 50) and Su­per-Se­niors (Over 60) cat­e­gories, re­spec­tive­ly. Al­fred (86) held a sev­en-stroke lead at the end of the first day over Jo­di Giusep­pi (93) and ex­tend­ed his mar­gin to eight (173) over his Ch­aguara­mas team­mate Desrond Am­brose (181). At the end of the third and fi­nal day, Al­fred (254) was 13 shots clear of Am­brose (267). Rafi Mo­hamed (282) of Brechin Cas­tle fin­ished in third.

Hol­ly post­ed 235 to tri­umph over Ch­aguara­mas’ Wayne Bap­tiste (241) and Daniel Boodram (265) of Lee­wards. The Pointe-a-Pierre golfer took an ear­ly lead with 74 com­pared to Bap­tiste’s 84. How­ev­er, on the sec­ond day, Hol­ly was on­ly one shot ahead of Bap­tiste (161-162) thanks to a score of 78 by Bap­tiste.

On the fi­nal day, Hol­ly (74) re­grouped and matched his first day score on Sun­day to take the ti­tle. Bap­tiste al­so hit his best score of the week­end, 79, but had to set­tle for the run­ner-up spot.

Elise La Bor­de took care of the Ladies’ field with 172 in a two-day con­test. The na­tion­al play­er emerged ahead of her 10 oth­er com­peti­tors with 83 on the first day on Sat­ur­day, with her Ch­aguara­mas club­mate Tori De Fre­itas-Bap­tiste (88) and Ram­sa­hai and Pointe-a-Pierre’s Madi­son Davis (96).

La Bor­de, a sixth form stu­dent at Holy Faith Con­vent, Cou­va, then en­sured her win with an 89 on the sec­ond day. De Fre­itas-Bap­tiste held on for sec­ond with 93, over Ram­sa­hai, who shot 88. La Bor­de and De Fre­itas-Bap­tiste rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the Caribbean Cham­pi­onships in Bar­ba­dos while La Bor­de will head off to Puer­to Ri­co lat­er this week for the Caribbean Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships (Ju­ly 27 to Au­gust 2).

War­ren Steele and Za­hir Sookram pro­duced come-from-be­hind fin­ish­es to emerge cham­pi­ons in their di­vi­sions. Steele won the First Flight by two shots (256). The To­ba­go-based den­tist was in third af­ter day one (90) as Chris­tan Khan (86) was ahead with Bri­an Fares (87) in sec­ond. How­ev­er, Steele seems to have had the cor­po­ra­tion of flo­ra on his home course as his shots up in the trees luck­i­ly re­sult­ed in his balls land­ing on favourable spots on the fair­ways. With the good for­tune, he led the field on the sec­ond day with 139 over Khan (133). On the fi­nal round, Steele held his lead with 84 to win with a net of 256 ahead of Khan (258) and Court­ney Ed­wards (267).

Sookram moved from 16th on the first day to the top of the pile in the Sec­ond Flight with 210 (net). The Sec­ond Flight proved the most com­pet­i­tive, with a dif­fer­ent leader on each day. Cur­tis Lee Poy (73) took the lead af­ter the first round be­fore Ab­ba Bal­ly Roopc­hand (122) took com­mand af­ter the sec­ond day. Sookram start­ed slow­ly and im­proved slight­ly to 14th and de­liv­ered 88 on the fi­nal day. For his hand­i­cap of 30, he was re­ward­ed with a re­vised score of 58.

Ahamad Ali of Mil­len­ni­um Lake Golf Club was the top Mas­ters (Over 70) golfer with his two-day gross of 156 (78/78). Bill Ram­rat­tan (Brechin Cas­tle ) had to set­tle for sec­ond, 176 (88/88) ahead of Ram­lal Boodram 179 (88/91).


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