Shiny hole-in-one prize awaits at Sandals Golf and Jerk Festival

SET at 157 yards at Sandals Golf and Country Club in Upton, St Ann, the 11th hole will have a sleek prize awaiting the first player to hit a hole in one at the May 4-5 Sandals Golf and Jerk Festival.

On Wednesday, the hole-in-one ‘trophy’, a shiny 2019 KIA Optima sedan, held centre stage inside the Oxford Road, St Andrew, showroom of KIA Motors Jamaica as details for the second Sandals Golf and Jerk Festival were announced by executives from the resort and the tournament’s sponsors.

Heidi Clarke, executive director, Sandals Foundation, said all proceeds from the fun event will be channelled to the St Ann’s Bay Hospital’s physiotherapy department to aid its stroke- prevention and rehabilitation programme as well as the Sandals Care for Kids Golf Programme.

“We are superexcited. It was a great time last year. Last month marked the 10th anniversary of the Sandals Foundation. This will be the biggest aspect of our activities to mark the anniversary,” Clarke pointed out, adding that the hospital’s physiotherapy department “serves more than 4,000 persons annually, and the tournament will also benefit the foundation’s campaign for stroke-prevention in nearby communities”.

Miguel Arthurs, general manager, Sandals Golf and Country Club, and conceptualiser of the event, spoke passionately about the tournament’s format and delectable food and beverage offerings, which will feature 90 golfers, inclusive of juniors, playing in a two-man scramble, against the backdrop of 20 jerk teams in a Best Dressed Chicken-sponsored contest, as well as “a Starbucks Coffee Terrace, CPJ Luxury Lounge, topped off by a Happy Hour on the ‘19th hole’”.

“This will be the first-ever 36-hole scramble in Jamaica,” an excited Arthurs explained, “and the first-ever adult-junior two-man scramble, plus a hole-in-one prize of a 2019 KIA Optima. Sports with food is a marriage made in Heaven,” he added, pointing out that registration opened yesterday, Friday, April 5, at the Jamaica Golf Association (JGA), Constant Spring Golf Club; ATL Automotive, Oxford Road; Sandals Golf and Country Club, and Fontana pharmacies.

Arthurs said that participation of juniors has always been encouraged, starting at last year’s inaugural staging when the tournament was used as a trial by the JGA for the national team to the Caribbean Junior Championships.

Allison Reid of the JGA thanked Sandals for its commitment to junior golf, through its junior golfers’ programme at Upton, which produced 2015 Caribbean Amateur Junior champion Romaine Evans.