HANOVER, Ja­maica – The Ex­cite­ment is build­ing for the pres­ti­gious Ja­maica Open Golf Cham­pi­onship, which is set to take place for the fifth con­sec­u­tive year at the scenic Tryall Golf Club in Hanover.

The event, or­ga­nized by the Ja­maica Golf As­so­ci­a­tion (JGA), was of­fi­cial­ly launched at the Con­stant Spring Golf Club in St. An­drew, Ja­maica, re­cent­ly.

Tour­na­ment play will run from No­vem­ber 10 to 12, with a Pro-Am tour­na­ment sched­uled on No­vem­ber 9, where both pro­fes­sion­als and am­a­teurs will play in teams, fos­ter­ing ca­ma­raderie and al­low­ing over­seas golfers to fa­mil­iar­ize them­selves with the chal­leng­ing course.

The Ja­maica Open will see over six­ty par­tic­i­pants from the USA, Cana­da, Ugan­da, Trinidad & To­ba­go, Bermu­da, and Ja­maica. Among the com­peti­tors is de­fend­ing cham­pi­on An­drew Arft from the USA.

This year’s for­mat re­mains stroke play, with play­ers com­pet­ing over 18 holes each day, to­talling 54 holes for the cham­pi­onship.

“We’re look­ing for­ward to a suc­cess­ful event,” said Pe­ter Chin, chair­man of the or­ga­niz­ing com­mit­tee.

“En­try num­bers have sur­passed last year’s, which is a great sign of the tour­na­ment’s re­cov­ery post-pan­dem­ic.

Prize mon­ey plays a big role in at­tract­ing top tal­ent, and this year’s purse is set at US$110,000 for a full field.”

This year, the JGA is ho­n­our­ing leg­endary Ja­maican golfer John­ny Bloom­field, the on­ly play­er to win three con­sec­u­tive Ja­maica Opens.

Ja­maica Golf As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Jo­di Munn-Bar­row as­sured that Tryall’s course is in “ex­cel­lent con­di­tion,” de­spite the heavy rain­fall that the is­land ex­pe­ri­enced from Trop­i­cal Storm Raphael.

“The rough will be grown again, adding to the course’s nat­ur­al chal­lenges.

Tryall is al­ready known for its dif­fi­cul­ty, and if the winds pick up, it will be even more de­mand­ing for the play­ers. It’s an ide­al venue for the Ja­maica Open.”

CMC