President of the JOA Chris Samuda (r) shared a moment with Mattea Issa and the Jamaica golf team to the 64th Caribbean Amateur Golf Championships at the Norman Manley International Airport on Saturday.
Five of Jamaica’s eight-member team departed the island on Saturday for the 64th Caribbean Amateur Golf Championships which will be played at the Country Club at Grand Reserve, Rio Grande in Puerto Rico from August 24 to 26.
The five - Justin Burrowes, Mattea Issa, William Knibbs, Dr Mark Newnham and Shamar Wilson - will be joined later by Rocco Lopez, Owen Samuda and Madelyn Newkirk. The team will have two practice rounds on the par 72 course prior to the start of the championship as they prepare to challenge for the Arthur Ziadie Trophy, the Hoerman Cup and the George Teale Trophy.
A strong men's team headed by national amateur golf champion Justin Burrowes will lead the charge for Hoerman Cup which Jamaica has never won. Jamaica was third at the last championship held in 2019. There was no competition in 2020 because of the pandemic.
"It's one of my favourite tournaments, the Caribbean tournament, it means everything to me to travel with my team to represent my country and hopefully do well," said Burrowes, who welcomed the new players to the campaign.
"I think they get along really well with the team. They are both very easy people to get along with so that aspect of it is easy. They are both two very talented golfers so I know they will go out and do their best and that's all we can really ask for.
“I played junior golf with Rocco at least three or four times so I know Rocco really well and we are rooming together; and Shamar, we have been playing together for the past two or three years so we have a good connection there and in the team practices we have been getting along really well and I think to have them on the team is a good addition."
Meanwhile, Wilson said he is eagerly awaiting the start of the tournament.
"It feels exciting, naturally, to go and represent your country which is the highest stage there is. Everybody wants to get to the stage where it’s the biggest thing to go represent your country, so I am really excited about that," he said.
The most experienced member of the team is Dr Mark Newnham is hoping he is able to inspire the team to give their best.
“What I bring to the team is not only that level of experience but in previous management as well as obviously physician capacities, I have been able to get the best out of the team and I am just looking forward,” he said.
“If you take out my age, we are talking about a very young group of players, talented, awesome and we just going to play and support each other and do Jamaica proud. The awesome talent that's there and how well we gell together is going really do well for our chances of bringing home the Hoerman Cup and the George Steele Trophy."
Williams Knibbs, a former amateur champion said he feels like he is ready to play his best golf at the tournament.
"I feel like I am rounding into form at the right time so physically the game is there so it is just for me to deal with it mentally and emotionally," he said.
The female team has been weakened by the unavailability of the four golfers who were named after the trials. This is because the date of the championship was changed to a later time in August and they are unable to get the time off from school. Fourteen-year Mattea Issa makes her debut on the senior team while Madelyn Newkirk, who represented Jamaica back in 2016, returns to the team.
Issa was happy to be called to the senior team for the first time.
"It feels great to represent my country. It's something that I have always wanted to do. It's a goal of mine to do at this age,” she said.
“Most of the people on my team are a lot older than me so being 14, I think is going to be a great learning experience and I am going to have a great time. My expectations for this tournament is to learn a lot and do the best as I can, shoot as best as I can and overall, end this tournament being a better golf player because I will be learning a lot from the rest of my teammates."
Meanwhile, team manager Robert Chin has high hopes for the team's chances at the championship.
"I think the men's team will do very well given the experience and given the fact that these guys have performed at the highest level in the Caribbean before so I do expect them to deliver. On the female side, a little short but it's what it is and we have to just play with what we have," he said.
Dale Whitnell takes four-shot lead into final round in Stockholm
England’s Dale Whitnell will take a four-shot lead into the final round of the Volvo Car Scandinavian Mixed as he goes in search of a first DP World Tour title in Sweden.
A stunning 61 on day two in Stockholm had handed him a six-shot advantage after 36 holes and despite dropping a first shot of the week on the second, he responded with four birdies in his next five holes to lead by eight.
He would not have it all his own way, however, as he made a double-bogey on the ninth after a poor tee-shot and another on the 16th after finding the water, although birdies on the 10th and 15th limited the damage.
German Ryder Cup hopeful Yannik Paul had cut the advantage to three with a tap-in birdie at the last as he completed a 68 but playing partner Whitnell followed him in from 15 feet to get to 19 under after a 70 and stay in pole position for victory.
“I had a couple of instances where it didn’t quite go to plan but I thought I kept my head, just tried to plug away and take one shot at a time,” he said.
“It is hard to go through a round of golf without dropping a shot, let alone two or three or four, so I sort of stuck to my guns, had a gameplan and tried to execute it.
“I mean it wasn’t a bad day, it wasn’t exactly ideal but it was more than acceptable.”
Scotland’s Richie Ramsay was six shots off the pace after a 69 as he looks for a fifth DP World Tour victory and second in as many seasons.
“The boys are playing well in front but I’m within touching distance and the goal was always to be in the mix on the back nine and I feel the back nine has a lot of opportunities,” he said.
“If I can just sort of jostle for position a little bit I can be right there, but you don’t know what they are going to do, all you have got to do is give your best, your 100 per cent and then if an opportunity arises, go for it.”
The Netherlands’ Anne van Dam matched the lowest round of the day with a 63 to be the leading woman at 12 under, a shot clear of English pair Matthew Jordan and Gabriella Cowley, with the latter making three eagles in her 64.
Justin Rose recalls ‘magical’ US Open triumph 10 years on
A decade may have passed since Justin Rose won the US Open, but unsurprisingly memories of his momentous achievement at Merion quickly come flooding back.
“It turned into a magical week and there were so many factors in play,” Rose told the PA news agency in an exclusive interview.
“It was one of the first majors that I really identified as a huge opportunity and I really went out of my way to prepare for, really did things a little bit differently that week.
“There was some great preparation mixed in with kind of a mystical side of it being Father’s Day, me feeling like my dad was watching down and being very much a motivating factor for me that week.”
Yet it was a week which could easily have turned out so differently.
The preparation Rose alluded to was three full days spent at Merion the week before the championship, only for the conditions to change significantly following a downpour caused by the remnants of tropical storm Andrea.
With torrential rain continuing to fall on the East Course, plans were even put in place to use two holes on the West Course, while Ian Poulter offered an illuminating response when asked whose game would be suited to the test.
“Someone who can use flippers and snorkel the best,” Poulter replied.
“That was fortuitous that the bad weather came in and I wasn’t around for it, but in some ways it made me doubt my preparation because I’d seen Merion in a certain way,” Rose recalled.
“The course was playing fantastically and it was a US Open so you build your game plan in a way to think, ‘How can I get round this course without making mistakes and shoot even par?’
“Then all the rain came down and softened up the course and all the Golf Channel pundits are saying it was going to be a bloodbath, birdies everywhere and double digits under par was going to win.
“I was like, ‘Oh well, that was a bit of a waste of time then,’ but it was too late to change my game plan so I stuck with it and, lo and behold, one over par won the golf tournament.”
That winning total belonged to Rose following a dramatic final round played out alongside Luke Donald, the English duo starting the day two shots behind Phil Mickelson, who was celebrating his 43rd birthday.
Mickelson double-bogeyed the third and fifth to limp to the turn in 39 before holing out for an eagle on the short par-four 10th, only for Rose to immediately respond with birdies on the 12th and 13th to reclaim the lead.
Two bogeys in three holes from both players left Rose one ahead on the 18th tee, from where he hit a perfect drive to within a few yards of the plaque which commemorates Ben Hogan’s one-iron to the 72nd hole of the 1950 US Open, which helped get the American into a play-off the following day which he went on to win.
“I hit probably the best shot of my life at the right time which ultimately ended up missing the green, which shows you how hard that shot is in there,” Rose laughed.
“I left myself in the perfect spot really to make an easy four which I hoped was going to be good enough.”
After tapping in for par, Rose raised his fingers to the sky in tribute to his father Ken, a massive influence on his career who died from leukaemia in 2002.
“Being a father myself by that point in my life, it was very special,” he said.
“My coach at the time, Sean Foley, sent me a really great message the morning of the final round making it clear what a good day would look like.
“It wasn’t necessarily based upon the result, it was more about going out there and carrying myself in a way that would make not just my dad proud, but my kids, being a role model for them and showing them how to carry yourself in pressure situations.
“Obviously I had to wait for the final groups to finish, so there was some nail biting going on because I felt like I had done enough and you can almost taste victory at that point.
“I would have hoped it would have been the catalyst to go on and win some more majors, but that obviously isn’t the case yet.
“Having that monkey off the back was a huge relief at that point in my career. It came before there were any questions on being the best player not to have won a major – it was nice to take care of business and I hoped the freedom of that would have kicked me on to win more.
“I’ve had a few opportunities and that’s where majors are hard to win because yes, you have to play great golf, but you also need that little moment of brilliance or luck right at the end that gets the job done.”
Rory McIlroy boosts chances of third RBC Canadian Open title with flawless 67
Rory McIlroy boosted his chances of a third consecutive RBC Canadian Open title with a flawless second round of 67 in Ontario.
McIlroy recorded five birdies at Oakdale Golf and Country Club to improve to six under par, three shots off the halfway lead held by China’s Carl Yuan.
The world number three first won the tournament by seven shots in 2019 but it was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. McIlroy carded a closing 62 to win at St George’s 12 months ago.
Asked about trying to win the title for a third time on a third different course, McIlroy said: “I sort of like it.
“I like reacting to what I’m seeing out there and targets. And I’m not a great player at playing a course by memory.
“There’s certain venues on tour that I go back to and I play well, but it’s not really because I remember how putts are breaking or where to miss it. It’s just I feel comfortable at that venue.”
Rounds of 68 and 67 gave Yuan a one-shot lead over home favourite Corey Conners, C.T. Pan and the English pair of Tyrrell Hatton and Aaron Rai.
Hatton, who fired six birdies in seven holes from the seventh in his 64, said: “A lot of putts went in, which was nice.
“The greens were a bit funky this afternoon; I managed to hit my start line, they’d bobble off line and thankfully they bobbled back on line and went in. Just happy to see the ball go in the hole and have a decent day.”
Rai was three over par after six holes of his opening round, but has played the next 30 in 11 under in pursuit of his first PGA Tour title.
“It’s a funny game and you can sometimes be playing great but sometimes be doubtful in the mind and not feel amazing over certain shots,” Rai said.
“You can sometimes be playing quite poorly but then kind of flick a switch in the mind and feel very positive about what you’re doing and what’s to come.
“So I think that was the biggest thing that even on hole number seven (on Thursday), although I was three over I felt pretty calm and pretty settled in the situation we were in. I think that was key for then finishing off the round very strongly.”
SportsMax is the Caribbean sports channel of choice, committed to providing sporting content of the highest quality to the Caribbean, delivered by a team of highly innovative, passionate and qualified professionals.
(876) 619-7629
digitalmedia@sportsmax.tv
