Late rally hands Team 6 Travel Advisors’ golfing honours
Published:Thursday | September 15, 2022 | 12:08 AMAinsley Walters/Gleaner Writer
THANKSGIVING MIGHT be two months away, but Team 6 had their turkey on Tuesday, three birdies in a row, rallying from second to beat day-one joint leaders Team 20 by one stroke in the 18th US Travel Advisors Golf Tournament at Sandals Golf and Country Club in Upton, St Mary.
Led by Jay Noller of Idaho, Team 6 scored 65 on Monday’s first day of the four-man scramble, tied for second with Team 1, before lowering their score by four strokes on Tuesday to finish on 61, a combined score of 126, one shot ahead of Team 20 totalling 127 from 64 and 63.
Team 20, comprising Ron Wagman, David Assef, Scott Austin and Annaliza Proctor, winner of the ‘Ladies Closest to Pin’ contest, started the second morning as joint leaders, tied on 64 with Team 21, but failed to hold off Noller, Jeremy Lee, David Anderson and Adam Anderson, who also landed the tournament’s ‘Putting Competition’.
“We came through at the end. We knew it was going to be close, so we had to dial in our shots. If we didn’t finish strong, it would have been over,” said a beaming Noller, adding that Team 6 met each other before heading out on the golf carts for Monday’s shotgun start.
Though some of the returning teams have been playing together for years in the annual tournament, hosted by Sandals to promote Jamaica as a golfing destination, Team 6 was among those randomly put together out of 84 participating travel advisers invited from across the United States by new director Jake Coldiron and his team.
“The others are from Wisconsin and Alabama,” Noller pointed out. “It was our first time playing together, and first time here as well. We enjoyed it so much that we have already decided to return next year to defend our title,” he added.
One of three such tournaments hosted annually by the resort, including next month’s Baxter Canadian and Latin American version, Sandals’ ‘Care For Kids’ programme, run on Saturdays by long-standing golf pro Bill Williams, earned US$990 from the Hole 14 challenge, in which participating travel advisers ‘sponsor’ junior players in a longest-drive contest.
Other sectional winners included Chuck Bentivegna, who won the men’s ‘Closest to the pin’. ‘Longest Drive’ was won by Cindy Fisher and Russell Hulse. Steve Ellemo was the ‘Chipping Competition’ winner.
In the fun ‘Best-dressed team’ contest, Coldiron departed from the norm of selecting one team, awarding Teams 2, 3, 8 and 17 for their themed outfits.
Meanwhile, the use of social media to enhance awareness of the tournament and Jamaica as a golfing and tourist destination, which took off during the competition’s two-year break due to the COVID-19 pandemic, saw multiple advisers being awarded for posting across various platforms, which was described as “the way of the future” by Dawn Bolte, senior director, travel industry sales, in closing Tuesday’s awards ceremony.