Inaugural Rose Cup tees off today
The Inaugural Rose Cup is set to tee off at 7:30 am today at the Caymanas Golf Club in St Catherine.
The Rose Cup will see the island’s best professional golfers take on the best amateurs in the battle for bragging rights, in memory of one of Jamaica’s most outstanding golfers — the late Seymour Rose.
The event will be played in the format of the Ryder Cup as explained by Sean Morris, co-organiser and team captain for the amateurs.
“The Rose Cup is formatted predominantly as the Ryder Cup between the USA and the European teams each year. The team captains are supposed to submit their teams of two players each for the first day, so there are two players for Team One and two players for Team Two and so on until Team Five is completed; so that’s 10 of the 12 players available and then the professional team has to submit the equivalent; they have to submit Team One, Team Two and so on and so forth until Team Five.
“The first day is better ball in the morning, it’s what we customary call four-ball and in the afternoon it’s alternate shot which customarily is called a two-ball or a foursome, so you have four balls in the morning and foursomes in the afternoon.
“The team captains will submit their teams one to five and the professional team is gonna submit their team one to five, and the tournament director is going to announce the matchups — Team One amateur vs Team One professional, Team Two amateur vs Team Two professional and so on and so forth.
“The second day is gonna be singles and I have decided that what I would like is to have a dramatic draw at the end of day one. We will do it in front of cameras, in front of the advertising boards and stuff like that — a live draw where the team captains will provide and put up their players for the first match of the day on the amateur side and matched by the professional and then it’s gonna be the professionals who put up their first choice of the second match, depending on who wins the toss, so that’s the format of play.”
Points distribution will be one point for a win and half point for a draw. The play format yields a maximum of 22 points with the first team to get 11 and a half points or more to be declared the winner. If the teams are tied, they will move to sudden death play-off on holes numbers one, two, 17 and 18, and repeated if necessary.
The professional players are Sebert Walker (non-playing captain), Raymond Brown, Wesley Brown, Martin But, Lloyd Campbell, Orville Christie, Allan Graham, Sean Green, Kevin McDonald, Jonathan Newnham (vice-captain), Ricardo Perry, Alford Robinson and Michael Rowe.
The amateur team members are Sean Morris, Justin Burrowes, Wayne Chai Chong, John Dunbar, William Knibbs, Tommy Lee, Mark Newnham, Rocco Lopez, John O’donoghue, Jack Stein, Sebert Walker Jr and Shamar Wilson.
