Businessman Kishan Bacchus yesterday grabbed first lien on the President’s Cup golf tournament held at the Lusignan Golf Course.
The inaugural tournament was sponsored by the Ministry of Tourism under the patronage of His Excellency President Donald Ramotar.
Second place went to Ayube Subhan while Mike Mangal was third. Mohanlall Dinanauth and Gavin Todd rounded out the top five places.
Dinanauth also won the prize for the best gross with the longest drive prize going to Avinash Persaud and Imran Khan winning the Nearest to the Pin award.
Over 40 golfers participated in the tournament which President of the Lusignan Golf Club Jerome Khan last night described as successful.
“I think it was very successful in the sense that the players responded to the initiative by the president.”
He added: “We saw several persons playing at Lusigan for the first time including United States Ambassador D. Brent Hardt.”
Khan took the opportunity to congratulate Bacchus, who last weekend placed second in the El Dorado tournament, on his victory.
Earlier yesterday morning President Donald Ramotar declared open the tournament in front of some 40-odd golf enthusiasts.
President Ramotar said that he was delighted to be at the competition but encouraged the executives of the body to manage the affairs of the sport very well pointing out that he does not want to government to get involved as they have done in cricket.
“I hope that it will have fewer problems than cricket has because I really want to get the government out of cricket as fast as possible and I don’t want government to get involved in golf at all,” he said.
“I want you to manage the affairs of this very, very well so that you don’t need to have anybody coming to the side brokering a deal for you in this regard,” he added.
President Ramotar expressed the hope that the discipline of golf will become as popular as cricket and football and said that with the attention the sport was receiving locally, it can be something the country can do more to promote.
“There now more and more people appreciating the game and another beauty of the game is that it allows many senior citizens to play the game. So this is a very important game more and more people are being attracted to it,” President Ramotar stated while declaring that he is being encouraged to take up the sport.
“But I was practicing my hand just now (yesterday) and I missed so often, that I don’t know that I could learn at this point in time. However, I am very happy as I said of being part of this.”
Bacchus apart from the lien trophy also received a complete set of golf equipment valued at approximately $100,000.
