By BRENT STUBBS

Chief Sports Editor

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

AFTER a fourth-place finish last year in Trinidad & Tobago, Bahamas Golf Federation members believe they have assembled a team that could win the  Caribbean Amateur Golf Championships this week in Barbados.

Following the BGF’s National Amateur Golf Championships over the weekend, a 10-member team departed The Bahamas yesterday and is scheduled to begin competition on Wednesday through Friday.

National champions Lynford Miller and Maddison Carroll and runners-up Richard Gibson Jr and Haley Hall will head the team that will be coached by Richard Gibson Sr. 

The other members on the men’s side are Nolan Johnson, Alex Dupuch and Alexander Roland and on the women’s side are Marinda Tucker and Chamari Pratt. 

Miller, the first president to win the national title, said the team is much stronger than last year, so he’s confident that they have the ability to win the title. 

“We’re working and the results are showing,” said Miller, who noted that the players should be well rested after competing in the nationals over the past three days at the Ocean Club on Paradise Island, Royal Blue at Baha Mar and the Lyford Cay Golf Club.

Gibson Jr, who has participated on the team over  the past 15 years, said he likes the makeup of the team. “I think if the president can go down there and out with the kind of performance he did at the nationals, we stand a chance,” Gibson Jr explained. 

“If he can have one good round, the rest of us will do what we have to do and so I think that would give us a very good chance to bring it home this year.”

As the 14-year-old national champion, Carroll said she’s excited to be leading the way for the ladies.

“It’s an honour to be on the team for the second time in a row,” she said.

“It’s an honour to represent my country at different golf courses. So I’m really looking forward to it.”

Hall, also back for her second trip, said she’s confident that they will return with the team trophy.

“We are going to have fun. We have a pretty strong team this year,” added Hall, a 14-year-old student of Nassau Christian Academy. “We have some new people, but we feel good about this team. We feel we can win the title.”

Dupuch, a member of several junior national teams since he was 16, said he’s excited to make his debut at the senior level with some of the top golfers in the country. “It’s always good when you can make a national team because it proves that you’re one of the best in your country,” Dupuch said. “So it’s always a good feeling to make it. So I’m excited.”

Coming off what he described as a “not so good” performance at the nationals, Dupuch said if he can pull it all together, he can be a force to reckon with for Team Bahamas in Barbados. 

The team is scheduled to return home on Saturday, hopefully as the champions.