By BRENT STUBBS

Chief Sports Editor

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

GEORGETTE Rolle-Harris said she likes the direction the Bahamas Golf Federation’s National High School Golf Tournament, sponsored by Capital Union Bank, is headed in.

Since its inception, Rolle-Harris’ Fourteen Clubs Golf Academy has been organising the event for both private and public schools. This year, teams from Eleuthera and Andros also participated.

“There was a lot of excitement,” said Rolle-Harris as she closed the chapter of the 2025 edition of the tournament. 

“To have these players come out here and represent their schools is amazing. The level of confidence that we see, even with new players coming into the game, and the willingness to learn a new sport, it just shows the depth and reach for which golf has and can get to,” Rolle-Harris said she was particularly pleased with have teams from South Andros and Central Eleuthera was huge because they got to see the potential for the sport on islands that don’t have access to golfing facilities.

“They had some of their players who scored well, despite not plying the sport before, so it shows that you just don’t need golf access to play, but you can practice certain aspects of the game and when you get to the tournament, you compete.

“So all you need is a desire to be a part of something and the will to hone your skills and you can see some great things happening as we’ve seen in 2024 where we were at 308 players and now in 2025, we are over 450 players.”

Dianna Kainz, a committee member responsible for registration and scoring, said this year’s event was very successful with a “great turnout” with at least 100 golfers participating in each day of competition from last Monday to Friday. 

“It’s available to anybody. Anybody can come out and play,” she said. “The schools bring these players and introduce them to the sport and they have done a tremendous job.”

Kainz, however, said as the tournament’s numbers continue to increase, they will need more volunteers to assist as well as an injection from more of corporate Bahamas to match the demands.

Ricardo Underwood, the Chief Financial Officer for JS Johnson, one the sponsors, said it was an awesome week of golf. He was he was pleased that they have been able to continue to assist with their annual sponsorship. 

“Our numbers were up from last year and it was up from the year before, so the sport of golf is growing strong,” Underwood said. “We’re looking forward to work is to come.”

Underwood, who had a daughter competing for Queen’s College, said this was the fourth year of JS Johnson’s involvement and he was very pleased to see that their dollars were well spent.

And Sheryl Carey, who represented Pineapple Airlines, said she started plying golf recently, but when the opportunity came to get involved in the tournament, she couldn’t refuse because she enjoys helping young people in our community.

“Anytime we can use any aspect to help young people, we will be willing to do it,” she said. “We combined with Western Air to assist the golfers coming out of Andros. So, I want to thank both airlines for their contribution.”

Carey assured Rolle-Harris that their partnership in junior golf is just the beginning.

Rolle-Harris said her committee will continue to look at ways to improve the level of competition in the tournament like they did this year, giving the high school players a two-day tournament as opposed to just one in the past.

“If our numbers continue to grow like this, it will lead us to our end goal, which is to match what happens in the US and the UK where players compete in qualifying tournaments leading up to the nationals,” she projected.

“So I think we are well on our way. The PE teachers and the players are all interested and we got a lot of feedback on things that we will put in place. We’re really excited and looking forward to 2026.”