Game Change: Jamaican Youth on the Green (Caribbean Kids Golf)

by Opal Palmer Adisa

“I wanted to test whether or not I have what it takes to compete at the PGA-tour level. But I hope to inspire the youths in Jamaica to see golf as a great complement to track and field. I firmly believe that we have many future Tiger Woods in Jamaica. We just need to get a golf club in their hands. It will be the first in almost a century that golf is being included back into the Olympics.” Carl Whyte

When I was a child growing up in Jamaica in the 1960’s, I lived at Caymans Estate that then had one of the premier golf courses on the island, but golf was a game for rich, white men –often the only Black people on the field were caddies who toted the golfers’ bags containing the clubs. I remember some of my playmates finding the golf balls, which we played with sometimes, accidentally or intentionally injuring a playmate with whom we wanted to get even.

When my oldest daughter, Shola, was about five years old, her Godfather, Bilal, took her out to play golf and said she was really good. For her 7th birthday he bought her a set of golf clubs. She played until she was about ten years old, then decided golf was not for her.

When Tiger Woods began to garner attention on the golf scene in the late 1990s, I like many people of African descent, began to pay closer attention to the game, particularly since he was breaking records and debunking the erroneous notion that golf was a game too gentlemanly for African Americans.

And while Tiger Woods’s visibility has helped to open this sport more for African Americans and other non-white people, Caribbean and Jamaican golfers such as Caryle Whyte have been doing the same for youths throughout the Caribbean. As is Delroy Cambridge, another Jamaican golfer who turned professional in 1971, and became the first Jamaican to qualify to play on the European Seniors Tours in 2000. Cambridge has won five European Seniors Tour tournaments, and made the top twenty-five on that tour’s Order of Merit every year from 2001 to 2006.

But Jamaican youths are holding their own, as was evident this year when I volunteered in St. Croix, for the Caribbean Golf Association Junior Championships. There were participating teams from the Bahamas, Barbados, Cayman Island, Dominica Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago and the US Virgin Islands. The Puerto Rico team won, but all the youth were so focused and enthusiastic, it was heartening.

Personally, I was extremely proud and thrilled to see all the members of Jamaica’s team: Triston Brown, Luke Chin, Evelyn Lie, Isabelle Desnoes, Sebert Walker Jr., Justin Burrows, Max McCloy, Tina Crux, Romaine Evans, Griffin McCloy, Jordan Lowe; and especially girls like Victoria Samuel, representing the under 17 and Kie Harris, under 15 — who was also voted the most congenial player. These youths are passionate and committed to the game and are ushering a new era of golf. I imagine, more than one of them will surpass Tiger Woods.

Go Jamaica team, keep the black, gold and green flag flying! Lets support keeping Caribbean youths learning and playing the game.