T&T se­nior men’s golf team will be with­out the ser­vices of top lo­cal play­er Christo­pher Richards Jr, the T&T Open Am­a­teur cham­pi­on for 2023 for the up­com­ing Caribbean Am­a­teur Golf Cham­pi­onship (CAGC) in To­ba­go, from Ju­ly 24-29.

This was an­nounced at a me­dia brief­ing held at the St An­drews Golf Club, Mo­ka, Mar­aval, on Tues­day.

The tour­na­ment to be host­ed by the T&T Golf As­so­ci­a­tion in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (Sportt), Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, and the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs will see host T&T com­pet­ing against Puer­to Ri­co, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, US Vir­gin Is­lands, Ba­hamas, Ja­maica, Turks and Caicos, Cay­man Is­lands, and Bar­ba­dos takes place at the Mag­dale­na Golf Re­sort Plan­ta­tions, Low­lands, To­ba­go.

The par­tic­i­pat­ing teams and play­ers are ex­pect­ed to ar­rive be­tween Ju­ly 23 and 24 with com­pe­ti­tion set for Ju­ly 26 to 28.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to Wayne Bap­tiste, Vice Pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Golf As­so­ci­a­tion and Pres­i­dent of the T&T Golf As­so­ci­a­tion, Richards Jr, a re­cent sixth-place fin­ish­er in the Men’s In­di­vid­ual Stroke Play Tour­na­ment at the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games in San Sal­vador, El Sal­vador ear­li­er this month, and the win­ner of To­ba­go Golf Open ti­tle last week­end af­ter equal­ing the course record with an eight-un­der-par 64 will in­stead par­tic­i­pate at the pres­ti­gious 75th US Ju­nior Am­a­teur Golf Cham­pi­onship to be con­duct­ed at the 36-hole Daniel Is­land Club in Charleston, South Car­oli­na from Ju­ly 21-29.

Bap­tiste, who will serve as the Tour­na­ment Di­rec­tor for the CAGC stat­ed that Richards Jr was in­vit­ed to the US event based on his in­volve­ment as a mem­ber of the Ju­nior World Team against the USA in the 2022 Ju­nior Pres­i­dent’s Cup.

In the ab­sence of Richards Jr, the lo­cal team for the 66th edi­tion of the CAGC which will be held in T&T for the first time in ten years, and on the is­land of To­ba­go for on­ly the sec­ond time, and first since T&T’s tri­umph in 2003 will be spear­head­ed by Ryan Pe­ters.

The team to con­test the Ho­er­man Cup and the Women’s George Teale to be coached by Christo­pher Richards Sn and man­aged by Mike Charles will al­so in­clude Ja­da Charles, Chloe Ajod­ha, Liam Bry­den, Ethan Hill, Jean-Marc Chevroti­er, Ryan Gomez, and Gabriel Vanososte with Ay­den Ali as the lone re­serve.

In his ca­pac­i­ty as Vice Pres­i­dent of the CA­GA, Bap­tiste said on be­half of the head of the re­gion­al body he thanked the T&TGA for host­ing this year’s Caribbean Cham­pi­onship in To­ba­go.

He said, “I have ob­served all the prepa­ra­tions that have tak­en place and I am sat­is­fied that all the re­quire­ments were met to host the tour­na­ment.”

“The CAGC is the biggest and most pres­ti­gious re­gion­al tour­na­ment and every ten years it emerges like a ma­jes­tic phoenix spread­ing its wings to show­case the very best of golf across the re­gion it’s an event that is steep in tra­di­tion, his­to­ry and ref­er­ence for the game we love, and this year our coun­try has the dis­tinct ho­n­our of host­ing this event, more specif­i­cal­ly in our sis­ter isle of To­ba­go.”

He added, “The spir­it of this tour­na­ment goes far be­yond com­pe­ti­tion, and it’s an ex­pe­ri­ence that for­ev­er will be etched in the an­nals of golf­ing his­to­ry and is about the pow­er of uni­ty, the mag­ic of ca­ma­raderie, and the bonds we forge in our shared pur­suit of ex­cel­lence.”

“The sig­nif­i­cance of this tour­na­ment lies not on­ly in the num­ber of ju­nior ath­letes that will be in­spired but the ex­cep­tion­al golf­ing tal­ent it will show­case, but al­so in the pro­found im­pact it will have as a dri­ver of tourism at­tract­ing vis­i­tors from near and far to ex­pe­ri­ence the beau­ty of our cours­es, the thrill of the game, and the warmth of our hos­pi­tal­i­ty.”

Golf tourism has the re­mark­able abil­i­ty to show­case our sis­ter-isle nat­ur­al land­scapes, pro­mote lo­cal busi­ness­es and cre­ate last­ing mem­o­ries for those who em­bark on this in­cred­i­ble jour­ney.

The CAGC, there­fore, gives us a chance to shine the spot­light on our beloved des­ti­na­tion and show­case it as a pre­mier golf­ing haven.”

How­ev­er, Bap­tiste not­ed that the T&TGA can­not do it alone as there is a sig­nif­i­cant col­lec­tive ef­fort, that goes in­to cre­at­ing an event of this mag­ni­tude and the gen­er­ous sup­port of spon­sors and un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion of vol­un­teers, and the pas­sion of the golfers are the dri­ving force be­hind this tour­na­ment and he ex­pressed his heart­felt grat­i­tude to all those who have giv­en their full sup­port to­wards the stag­ing of the event, in­clu­sive of main spon­sors, the Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, through the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T (Sportt), as well as the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), Blue Wa­ters, and Vem­co, and all oth­ers in­volved.”

Hay­den Mitchell, Di­rec­tor of Sportt not­ed that host­ing an event of this mag­ni­tude is nev­er an easy task, as its al­ways eas­i­er to send a na­tion­al team away to par­tic­i­pate in some sort of com­pe­ti­tion, but rais­ing your hand to host an event takes a lot of co­or­di­na­tion and for that, I would like to give the T&TGA round of ap­plause.”

Mitchell al­so salut­ed the ef­forts of Sportt and stat­ed that this event is by no means a small task in terms of the num­ber of sport­ing events be­ing host­ed in T&T over the next cou­ple of months, main­ly the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games from Au­gust 4-11, and the co­or­di­na­tion of that from the team at Sportt has been great.”

Al­so present at the launch of the cham­pi­onship were Justin Lat­apy-George, Head of Sport De­vel­op­ment at Sportt, Robin Lewis, the Vice Pres­i­dent of the T&TGA and mas­ter of cer­e­monies as well as mem­bers of the na­tion­al golf team.

At the last edi­tion of the CAGC, Ja­maica won the women’s George Teale Tro­phy and the run­ner-up spot for the Arthur Ziadie Tro­phy (or coun­try tro­phy) while Puer­to Ri­co won the men’s ti­tle of the event host­ed by the Turks & Caicos Is­lands at the Turks & Caicos Golf Club.