The first ever Inter-Schools golf championships got off to a roaring start this week with five secondary schools from Berbice, Linden, Essequibo, East Coast Demerara and West Coast Demerara participating.
According to a release, the joint project between the Ministry of Education Allied Arts Unit and the Guyana Golf Association (GGA) has seen amazing results in a short time as hundreds of students have been given a chance to play a sport that was only seen on television.
The release added that the pilot programme, which is training students who wish to write golf as a sport elective in CSEC/CAPE, is set to expand to as many as 90 secondary schools by end of 2021.
The game, stated the release has seen tremendous progress in Linden where a full training programme is scheduled for March 10. During the past week, over 200 new to the sport but dedicated players, tried out for the school teams resulting in teams of 10 (boys and girls) earning the right to represent their respective schools, some having to endure tough playoffs.
Leading the way was Berbice Educational Institute (BEI) which produced the two highest individual scores as Subrina Balgobin and Delton Cassiano outscored all players to take the top honors for boys and girls in the qualifiers. Yesterday the teams competed (following COVID-19 guidelines in their own areas) under strict monitoring with results sent to Allied Arts Unit where totals will be tallied and the winners determined for Guyana’s fastest growing school sports programme.
According to the Physical Education teachers, the interest level for golf is so high that this is the first time that they have not had to recruit students for a new sport programme but have been bombarded with requests to participate. Osafa Dos Santos of BEI said “what is unexpected is that the girls are dominating and that makes the guys so mad that they try harder…its a lot of fun and excitement every time we get together.” Similar reactions were seen at the Anna Regina Multilateral, Leonora Secondary, Wismar Secondary and President’s College as they launched their programme over the past few months.
Note: Elisha Smith with 80 from Anna Regina took the boys top spot in the preliminaries while Suzette Joseph with 70 from Anna Regina tied with Subrina Balgobin from Berbice Educational Institute take the girls preliminary top spot.
Corporate sponsors who have thrown their support behind the development of Golf in Guyana include Assuria General Insurance, Copa Airlines, Trophy Stall, AR Printery and Nexgen Global Marketing.
