The Jamaica Golf Association (JGA) held its first media briefing for the prestigious 55th Jamaica Open Golf Championship on Wednesday at the Constant Spring Golf Club in Kingston. The championship will be held at Tryall Golf Club for the fourth consecutive year from Saturday November 12 (pro am) to Tuesday November 15. It continues to be a three-day, fifty-four-hole tournament on the par 72 golf course.
Dr. Mark Newnham, vice president of the JGA said “we are just so proud, so excited to host this championship. We struggled a little bit with staging this during Covid. Our protocols are going to be a little bit more relaxed this time and we couldn’t be more happier than to stage this our 55th event. The Jamaica Open is our premier event.”
Peter Chin chairman of the organizing committee said “We are very happy with where we are now, all the plans are in place, so far so good. We have sponsorship in place. We have the golf course in place. We have players who are registering and paid their entry fees. So far we have 65 players and we are hoping to reach to 100 by tournament day. We are happy that a number of the past winner are coming back, Michael Maguire who won last year and Patrick Cover who won the year before. Both players have graduated to the Kornferry tour but they seem to have a liking to the Jamaica Open so they are coming back to play.” Regarding the purse money he said “the purse is one hundred thousand US dollars and its very competitive to other events in the Caribbean in particular.”
The late professional golfer Seymour Rose is the honouree this year. He won the Jamaica Open three times in 1977, 1982 and 1987. According to Gordon Hutchinson who made the announcement “Seymour is really one of the icons of Jamaica Golf and we don’t want to forget him. We want to remember him. We want him to be associated with Jamaica Open for a long time. His name will always be there on the records as a past winner. Seymour was outstanding because he was such a gentlemen in addition to being a golfer. He did a lot for young golfers coming up. He was a very humble person and you can approach him anytime and he would assist you irrespective of who you are .”
Pro golfer Orville Christie said “you can expect my best cause I always try to do my best.” He plans to do good enough to collect a part of the prize money. He also said that he was prepared this time around “Tryall is a course where you have to be strategic. You have to know when and how, I made some before but this year I plan to just correct then and I think if I get a few puts to drop then I think it will be a different experience this year.”
Justin Burrowes who won the amateur section in 2021 said “the only thing I can really guarantee is that I will give it my best shot. I have been doing a lot of preparation on and off the golf course. I feel like have been a lot more discipline with the stuff of the golf course so I think that I can just go out there and give it my best shot. I think that my very good golf if pretty good so if I do that and I execute then we can expect something good.”
Tournament director Teddy Richards said that all plans are in place for the championship which tees off with the proam event and then the championship the following day. He said that according to Golf Superintendent at Tryall, Ewan Peebles the venue will be ready for a another good Jamaica Open Golf Championship come November 12-15.
The sponsors for the championship are Aqua Bay, Tourism Enhancement Fund, SDF, Tryall Golf Course, JTL Jamaica Tours Limited, Digicel Business, Jamaica Producers, Rain Forest, Wisynco (hydration), Barita (proam) and First Rock (pro am).