The Jamaica Golf Association (JGA) held its first media briefing for the prestigious 54th Jamaica Open Golf Championship on Tuesday at the Constant Spring Golf Club.

The championship will be held at Tryall Golf Club for the third consecutive year from tomorrow (pro am) to next Wednesday. It continues to be a three-day, 54-hole tournament on the par 72 course.

The late professional golfer Jasper Markland is the honoree this year. He won the Jamaica Open twice in 1964 and 1967 and was the caddie master at Constant Spring for many years and taught many golfers, including the current JGA president Jodi Munn-Barrow.

Markland’s daughter Margaret was very appreciative of the honour and recognition of her dad’s contribution to the sport over many years. She said that if he were here “he would be proud, very proud. He was a golf teacher here so he would be very happy for this”.

President Munn-Barrow, who is presiding over her first Jamaica Open Championship since becoming the first female JGA president in the association’s 96 years of existence, said, “I am looking forward to a fantastic tournament; although I am the president it’s really the team of the Jamaica Golf Association that has pulled this off and without our sponsors we would not be here. I am looking forward to the golf. I think it’s gonna be an excellent week of golf.”

She said that the overseas golfers come from US, Canada, Bermuda and Trinidad & Tobago. According to Munn-Barrow, JGA has attracted more entries than last year and this bodes well for the tournament.

Munn-Barrow had high praises for the honoree. “For my generation Jasper was the professional golfer. I can’t think of anybody who started golf in my time who wasn’t taught by Jasper, and beyond being a professional golfer he was a gentleman. He was a role model. He had been through so much in his life but he had still given back so much to golf and really a good example for all golfers in Jamaica, and I don’t think golf in Jamaica would be where it is without that platform, without that benchmark of Jasper Markland, hence the recognition.”

Orville Christie, the best-placed local pro golfer in 2020, said, “Nothing is a surety but my intention this year is definitely to defend the local championship.”

He expects to get good competition from the 2019 top local pro golfer Wesley Brown. Christie said that he has been preparing to compete at Tryall for some time and expects to do well again.

The defending champion in the amateur section William Knibbs says that he is ready to defend his title. “I definitely think I can but I won’t get caught up thinking that’s my only focus, because ultimately if I execute well and he [Justin Burrowes] beats me or if somebody [else] beats me, then you just have to tip your cap to them. But I will do everything in my power to give myself the best chance to contend again.”

Knibbs went back recently to Tryall to familiarise himself with the course again and said that it is just as challenging as ever.

Tournament director David Mais said that the course should be fully ready by the time the tournament tees off for Sunday’s pro am tournament. He said that though there have been heavy rains at Tryall in recent weeks, the club is well-equipped with the appropriate machinery to do the job.