THE Jamaican team returned to the island on the weekend from the 35th Caribbean Amateur Junior Golf Champs with two individual trophies to boast.

Overall, Jamaica placed third in the championship with 116 points, behind winners Puerto Rico (161 points) who walked away with the Hank James trophy. The Dominican Republic were second on 131 points.

Jamaica’s Team Captain Emily Mayne carried home the second-place trophy in the 18 and under girls, after scoring 14 over par 227 to end the tournament 15 shots behind group winner Holly McLean (212) of host country Cayman Islands.

Regarding Jamaica’s performance Mayne said: “I am proud of my team’s performance. The conditions we faced was very windy, and of course we are used to some wind in Jamaica but we really had to adapt to the wind.”

Jamaica’s other representative in the category was Mattea Issa, who ended in sixth place after posting 28 over par 241. Jamaica placed second in the group.

Rocco Lopez and Aman Dhiman began the final round in joint third place in the 18 and under boys, but Lopez left the best for last when he sent down a one under par 70 to end on three over par 216 in third place. He was one of just three players to post an under par score during the championship.

“The scores weren’t too bad [but] I felt like I could have played a lot better. I felt like I wasn’t hitting the ball that great. I like the greens but I couldn’t make puts. I didn’t make all birdies but I managed to scramble very well ,and that kept me around par each day,” said Lopez.

Dhiman (227) and Ryan Lue (230) collected enough points to bag third place in the group.

The group winner was Kelvin Hernandez of Puerto Rico as he topped the leaderboard on all three days with under par rounds of 68 (-3), 70 (-1) and 65 (-6) for 10 under par 203.

Coach Jason Lopez summed up the team’s performance with “we had some nice standout players”.

“Rocco Lopez finishing in the top three in the boys’ Under-18 and Emily finishing second in the girls’ Under-18 [stood out], and we had some kids play some good golf throughout the tournament in the various age groups. We just weren’t able to put it together consistently day to day which is why we ultimately finished third instead of second,” Lopez said.

The two 11-13 boys, Kemari Morris and Shasa Redlefsen were responsible for the third place in the group. Puerto Rico were the group winners.

The 11-13 girls’ representative Alessandra Coe contributed the team’s fourth place in the group. The Bahamas won the group.

The 15 and under girls of Samantha Azan and Anoushka Katri also gave points to the group’s standing in fourth place. Puerto Rico won the category.

Aaron Ghosh and Davin Hogan closed the championship in sixth place in the 15 and under boys while Puerto Rico topped the group.