T&T’s Wayne Bap­tiste cap­tured the Men’s Su­per Se­niors (60 and Over) ti­tle on the first week­end of the T&T Golf Open at the Plan­ta­tions Golf Course, Mag­dale­na Beach and Golf Re­sort, Low­lands, To­ba­go on the week­end (March 14-16).

Bap­tiste topped the field of 28 play­ers to earn a gross score of 236 af­ter the three days of ac­tion. Com­pet­ing in his first year in the age cat­e­go­ry, Bap­tiste got the bet­ter of com­pa­tri­ots Richard Ca­ma­cho (238) and John Hol­ley (245). The pres­i­dent of the T&T Golf As­so­ci­a­tion (TTGA) was ahead at the end of the first day with 75, six over par. Ca­ma­cho was sec­ond (79) and Ia­ian Pee­bles in third (82). Hol­ley was down in fourth spot (84).

Bap­tiste ex­tend­ed his ad­van­tage at two days with 78 to to­tal 153. Ca­ma­cho (156) re­mained in the run­ners-up po­si­tion (77), three points be­hind with Hol­ley (167) now in third (82). Pee­bles dropped down to 11th af­ter scor­ing 90 (178). Bap­tiste ce­ment­ed his hold on the ti­tle af­ter hit­ting 83 on the third and fi­nal day to tal­ly 236 with Ca­ma­cho (238) just be­hind on 82). Hol­ley tak­ing the third prize (78), 245. Kennedy Flem­ming emerged with the best Net score (219).

Speak­ing af­ter his win Bap­tiste, who won the Se­niors (50 years and Over) Ja­maica Open in No­vem­ber 2025, said his prepa­ra­tion was cru­cial to win­ning.

“I was pret­ty con­fi­dent be­cause I have been work­ing very hard with­in the last month or so. For the last few days, I was just work­ing on be­ing able to score and get­ting close to the flag. I was men­tal­ly pre­pared to win that event,” he said, adding that he an­tic­i­pat­ed the chal­leng­ing Low­lands course.

“The play­ing con­di­tions were a bit tough in To­ba­go be­cause of the dry­ness of the fair­ways and the po­si­tions of the pins. Ac­tu­al­ly, I was pre­pared to ex­pect that in a cham­pi­onship event.”

Ja­maican Jo­di Munn-Bor­row copped the first-ever Ladies Di­vi­sion with a sim­i­lar­ly dom­i­nant per­for­mance with a gross score of 234 ahead of fel­low Ja­maican Matthe­sa Is­sa (237) and T&T’s hope, Vic­to­ria Seenath (248). Munn-Bar­row took an ear­ly lead (79) with Is­sa (83) and Seenath (84) fol­low­ing. The even­tu­al cham­pi­on played con­sis­tent­ly over the three days with 77 and 78 land the top prize. Is­sa im­proved with dai­ly re­turns of 79 and 75 but could not catch the win­ner while Seenath record­ed 80 and 84. Teenag­er Kaiyah Mar­son of To­ba­go was the top Net play­er with 213.

Munn-Bar­row was sur­prised at her tri­umph.

She said, “I am ac­tu­al­ly quite elat­ed on my vic­to­ry. I didn’t ex­pect it go­ing in­to the event. I had busi­ness com­mit­ments and did not prac­tise as much as I want­ed to. So I am quite over­joyed with this vic­to­ry, one of the biggest vic­to­ries I have had in my ca­reer. I re­al­ly ap­pre­ci­ate it and it is very im­por­tant to me. “

The pres­i­dent of the Ja­maica Golf As­so­ci­a­tion fur­ther said keep­ing the fo­cus on her­self helped in the win.

“One of the keys to my vic­to­ry was to just stay very pa­tient. The To­ba­go course, al­though I have been there pre­vi­ous­ly, was play­ing though. The pin place­ments were very tricky. So I try to stay pa­tient, try to stay with­in my­self and just re­al­ly fo­cus on hit­ting one shot at a time and not fo­cussing on any scores.”

Young Kaiden Baynes took care of the Third Flight class with 117 (37, 38, 42) to rel­e­gate Vi­jai Ra­goo­nanan 113 (34, 40, 39) to sec­ond and Anand Khel­wan third 98 (30, 33, 35).

Ahamad Ali took home the two-day Mas­ters (70 and Over) ho­n­ours on a play-off with a gross of 167 (86, 81). Ku­mar Board­man sec­ond sil­ver 172 (88,84) with Mau­ri­ca Mathu­ra third 177 (87, 90). An­war Ali hit the top Net points of 129.

Baynes was grate­ful for his suc­cess. The 15-year-old Bish­op High, To­ba­go stu­dent praised his coach­es and par­ents say­ing: “I would like to thank God, Miss Ar­i­fa, Coach Pe­ter be­cause of the count­less hours he spent with me. I would al­so like to thank my moth­er and fa­ther for al­ways be­ing so sup­port­ive.”

Ac­tion in the 117th edi­tion of the T&T Golf Open shift­ed to Trinidad on Tues­day with the Bet­ter Ball tour­na­ment at St An­drews Golf Club in Mo­ka, Mar­aval.

Top lo­cal play­ers Chris Richards Jr and Jer­seem Boodram se­cured the win­ning prize with a score of 46. Nicholas Car­mona and Suresh Ja­gas­sar were next (45), fol­lowed by the pair of John Ram­per­sad and Ken Pol­lard (45).

Clin­ton Brew­ster and An­tho­ny Spann (45) were fifth fol­lowed by Bap­tiste and Munn-Bar­row (44). Pro­ceeds from the Bet­ter Ball com­pe­ti­tion go to­wards the de­vel­op­ment of golf for per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties.

This year’s T&T Golf Open cul­mi­nates this week­end with 132 play­ers list­ed to do bat­tle in the Pro­fes­sion­al, Cham­pi­onships, First, Sec­ond and Se­niors (50 and Over) Di­vi­sions which tee off to­day (Thurs­day, March 19).

T&T’s Ben Mar­tin heads the 12-man Pro­fes­sion­al field. Mar­tin is go­ing for a record sev­enth ti­tle. Thir­ty-two (32) play­ers have reg­is­tered in the Cham­pi­onships class with 29 in the First, 36 in the Sec­ond and 23 Se­niors.

The T&T Golf Open was first played in 1907 and is the longest-play­ing tour­na­ment in the Amer­i­c­as re­gion.

The spon­sors are the Prime Min­is­ter Sports and Cul­ture Fund, Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT), NGC, TT Mort­gage Bank, First Cit­i­zens Bank, Blue Wa­ters, Eteck, Vyb­wear (Ja­maica) and NL­CB.