Republic Bank Junior Open tees off

THE tenth Republic Bank Caribbean Junior Open will take place at the St Andrews Golf Course in Moka from today until Thursday.

The Prime Minister is expected to tee off at 8.15 am, which will be followed by the tournament.

This year ten foreign juniors will be competing including participants from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados and St Lucia. This year TT will have a strong contingent of six juniors from Tobago competing, along with the 40 players from Trinidad.

In the boys Under-18 age group Barbadian Xavier Wiggins will start out as favourite. The local contingent will be led by Brandon Matabadal and Tobago's Reyaz Rambarran who were both on the 2018 national junior team. In the Under-18 girls category there will be a battle among Yeji Lee and Sarah Ramphal of Trinidad, Tobago’s Krista Kent and St Lucia’s Lisa Daniel.

The boys 14 to 15 age group is where the fireworks will take place as Trinidadian teammates, Dravid Bhim (the recent winner of the TT Open second flight in a playoff) competing against Jean-Marc Chevrotierre, Chris Richards Junior and Zico Correia. Correia and Richards have now moved up into the older division. Some keen golf is expected in the category with Marlin Hotack of Antigua and Reyad Rambarran of Tobago also expected to be in the running.

In the girls 14 to 15 age group the main competition to Barbadian favourite Emily Odwin is expected to come from Trinidad’s Azariah Joseph and Jada Charles, while St Lucia’s Celina Lubin ability is unknown.

In the Under-14 boys Trinidad’s Ethan Hill will be leading the local players, with Matthew Davis, Jean-Luc Chevrotierre and Jerseem Boodram also in contention. Barbadian Quinton Heljenjenk’s ability is unknown.

Chloe Ajodha is the favourite in the girls Under-14 age group.

There will also be competition today for juniors playing three holes, tomorrow for those playing six holes and Thursday the nine-hole and 12-hole categories will be contested. Those competitions are for juniors who are relative newcomers to the game.

Republic Bank has been supporting golf for a number of years as prior to the Caribbean Junior Open, the bank sponsored the TT Junior Golf Open for eight years.