By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

WITH the driving range and nine-hole golf course now in full operation, businessman Craig Flowers said they will now focus on the construction of a clubhouse that will separate the juniors from the adults.

Flowers, who took on the responsibility of creating the present facilities at the Baillou Hills Sporting Complex, was making his remarks as he watched the completion of the BGF’s National High School Championships on Monday.

“We just submitted a document over the week or two for the construction of a clubhouse,” Flowers revealed. “The clubhouse will encompass and achieve the one thing that we feel is needed here, a separation of a golf academy for the juniors and the adults who are here.

“We would like to put the grown ups in an area where they can enjoy themselves with a bottle of beer or a glass of wine and does not impede the presence of the junior golf programme.”

Flowers, the owner of FML Group of Companies, is seeking approval for the construction of $4 million clubhouse that includes a sports bar complex on the top level and at the bottom level will be the golf academy.

In the golf academy, the golfers will have access to locker rooms with showers, a computer room and a gymnasium and an educational and study hall. “We want to provide everything that is needed for a golf academy for the juniors,” he said. “Then we want to move to the level where we have qualified instructors, who have gotten their certification, in order to teach the game of golf.”

With the influx of players participating in the junior development programme, headed by Gina Gonzalez- Rolle and the Fourteen Clubs Golf Academy, the brainchild of Georgette Rolle-Harris, Flowers said the construction of the clubhouse comes at the ideal time.

“It’s all about the future,” he said. “It’s a bright and gloomy and glittering future that is ahead of us and we just need to pay attention and give the kids access to this property and we are going to see some amazing things come out of this facility here.”

It is hoped that through the facility when fully completed, the Bahamas can see the next Roy Bowe, Prince ‘Zorro’ Stubbs and Jim Duncombe, who all passed away, but left their mark on the golfing fraternity from the old par-three Baillou Hills Golf Course.

No doubt, Flowers said they are also looking for the next golf executive to fill the shoes of the late Fred Higgs, Calvin Cooper and Ambrose Gouthro, who pioneered at the administrative level.

“The good thing is that we didn’t allow the one game that gave us some pleasure to get away from us,” he said. “It’s certainly an honour for me to have been chosen to lead in some way to produce a facility like this.

“I know there are some others in the federation who would be seeking to try and emulate or provide some of the energy that our forefathers produced, including Ken Francis and Cyril Vanderpool.”

In 2000 when Agatha Delancy became the president of the BGF, Flowers was serving as the vice president and together, they lobbied to the government for a piece of property for the BGF.

After they declined the offer of a parcel of land on Blake Road, Flowers said they agitated with Neville Wisdom, the then Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, granting the BGF to construct just a driving range.

Initially, the idea was to construct the driving range in the opposite direction that it presently sits from south to north, rather than west to west to ensure that the golfers were not adversely affected by the sun in their faces.

With a lot of debris and heavy equipment on the ground, Flowers said Emile and Irving Knowles were contracted to remove the rubbish before efforts were made to contact a group out of Lyford Cay to provide consultation on an irrigation system to be implemented in the ground.

About $4 million later, Flowers said they have provided the driving range and a nine-hole golf course that is now being used as an alternative.

“As government changes, the most promising cycle I can speak to was when Charles Maynard was the Minister of Sports and he was told that Craig Flowers, a stewart of the PLP, was in the back here digging up the ground without a permit,” Flowers recalled.

“When Charles came, the driving range had already been completed and we were putting the rocks around the trees to preserve the landmark there. He called me and told me that he changed his mind and with or without any documents, you have my support.”

Maynard, according to Flowers, advised him that any land he needed up to the National Park in Big Pond, which is adjacent to the facilities, he could utilise and that was how the construction of the nine-hole golf course got started.

“He came here every month, at least once a month and inquired as to how I was progressing,” Flowers said. “If there was one minister who took an interest in how this place was progressing, it was Charles Maynard.”

Unfortunately, Maynard passed away before Flowers completed the facility. He tipped his hat off to Maynard, who encouraged him to continue in creating the facility to what it is today.

At present, Flowers said he nor the BGF have any official documents from the government, who had indicated that they would assist in constructing a proper clubhouse and the landscaping.

But without any commitment from any government since he began the project, Flowers said he has now decided on the construction of the clubhouse over the next year and-a-half, once they can get the approval.

In addition to Delancy, who was around with him from day one, Flowers said the late Yvonne Shaw, a former secretary of the BGF, left her signature on the facility by planting the flowers and fruit bearing trees that are flourishing on the property. He also noted that the bridge on the lake bore a Poinciana tree that Shaw begged Flowers not to uproot it and after her death, they named the area, the Yvonne Shaw Island.

“She made an impact on their facility and nobody can ever question her love for this property,” he said. “She will forever be here as long as these grounds are opened to play golf.”