Fay­ola Fras­er

Let’s Golf To­ba­go, an NGO formed in Oc­to­ber 2021 by trail­blaz­er Ar­i­fa Bansal, is the first ju­nior clin­ic to be held un­der the aus­pices of the Chief Sec­re­tary’s Char­i­ty Golf Tour­na­ment in Low­lands, To­ba­go.

Bansal is the moth­er of two for­mer na­tion­al golf play­ers. She saw the need to ex­pand the sport af­ter her close in­volve­ment in the game and trav­el­ling with her sons lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly to see them play in tour­na­ments. Thus, Let’s Golf To­ba­go was born.

Let’s Golf To­ba­go’s Ju­nior Golf Pro­gramme is cen­tred around giv­ing chil­dren as young as five an op­por­tu­ni­ty to play the sport. What sets the pro­gramme apart is the fo­cus on pro­vid­ing un­der­priv­i­leged or dif­fer­ent­ly-abled chil­dren ac­cess to the sport. They re­ceive a sol­id foun­da­tion in both prac­ti­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal as­pects of golf taught by sea­soned lo­cal golf pro­fes­sion­als. It is de­signed to in­tro­duce chil­dren to the sport of golf and coach them to play com­pet­i­tive­ly in lo­cal and re­gion­al tour­na­ments. Due to the dras­tic de­cline of golf in To­ba­go over the past few years, in­ter­est in the sport waned as a re­sult of a lack of sup­port and en­cour­age­ment in the de­vel­op­ment and train­ing of chil­dren.

Let’s Learn Golf, To­ba­go has ap­prox­i­mate­ly 42 reg­is­tered chil­dren from five to 18 years old who are cat­e­gorised in­to be­gin­ners, in­ter­me­di­ate, ad­vanced, and ad­vanced ju­nior skill lev­els. In 1996, Bansal and her hus­band moved to To­ba­go, em­brac­ing the “laid-back lifestyle” that the is­land of­fered.

In 2021, not­ing that “golf was so dead on the is­land,” she gath­ered five di­rec­tors and reg­is­tered Let’s Golf To­ba­go as an NGO. “I’m com­mit­ted to mak­ing each child feel spe­cial and im­por­tant,” she says. “Some of the chil­dren have dis­abil­i­ties such as cere­bral pal­sy or Down syn­drome, but they are al­ways ex­cit­ed to come out and have their day on the golf course.”

Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, the pro­gramme al­so pro­vid­ed a safe way for young peo­ple to en­joy the out­doors and en­gage in a sport where so­cial dis­tanc­ing is of­ten the norm. At present, Bansal has grown from six chil­dren in 2022 to 45 chil­dren in 2024 en­rolled in Let’s Golf To­ba­go, in­clud­ing chil­dren from or­phan­ages, chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties, and those whose fam­i­lies could not af­ford golf oth­er­wise.

Of her 45 golfers, there are 25 chil­dren in the pro­gramme from the Hap­py Haven School (for chil­dren with spe­cial needs) and Joy of Liv­ing Re­source Cen­tre. Known af­fec­tion­ate­ly as “Golf Mom,” Bansal has faced var­i­ous chal­lenges in de­vel­op­ing the pro­gramme. She has not al­ways found sup­port among the lo­cal golf­ing fra­ter­ni­ty to de­vel­op and ex­pand the pro­gramme and has tak­en on a sig­nif­i­cant amount of the risk to en­sure that these young peo­ple can play golf un­fet­tered. Hir­ing the head coach from Trinidad, a re­tired golf play­er, she brought him to To­ba­go to en­sure stu­dents get a high stan­dard of coach­ing.

As a hi­jab-wear­ing Mus­lim woman, she con­tin­u­ous­ly stands tall in the face of de­trac­tors who do not be­lieve she fits in­to the golf com­mu­ni­ty. How­ev­er, she rev­els in the suc­cess­es of the pro­gramme, which are made pos­si­ble by many sup­port­ers of the project, such as the gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Mag­dale­na Grand, who waives the green fees for ju­niors in the pro­gramme, al­low­ing them to have the re­sort’s grounds as the NGO’s of­fi­cial home course.

Aside from her role as a golf mom to many in the pro­gramme, she is a wife and the proud moth­er of three sons. Her el­dest son is at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, her sec­ond is at avi­a­tion school train­ing to be a pi­lot, and her third son is a Form 4 stu­dent at Bish­op’s High School in To­ba­go.

Al­though two of her chil­dren are for­mer na­tion­al golf play­ers, they con­tin­ue to play the sport for leisure, and Bansal trav­els to Trinidad on many week­ends to see her boys. Bansal’s fo­cus is not on­ly to de­vel­op the sport but al­so to use golf and sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties as a medi­um to pro­mote youth, com­mu­ni­ty and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment among young peo­ple. She hosts an an­nu­al award cer­e­mo­ny to ho­n­our the young golfers’ achieve­ments and un­der­score their im­prove­ments in the sport.

Host­ed this year at the Mag­dale­na Grand, there were greet­ings from the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, four of her play­ers were in­vit­ed to do a golf de­mo for the Spe­cial Olympics 2024. Bansal is con­tin­u­ing to qui­et­ly do the im­por­tant work of cre­at­ing an out­let for peo­ple who are in­ter­est­ed in sports and lack the means or ac­cess to pur­sue it.