RYAN BA­CHOO

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Liam Bry­den put on a stel­lar fi­nal day per­for­mance to storm back and win the 2022 Brechin Cas­tle Open at Sevil­la Golf Course in Cou­va on Sun­day. How­ev­er, it was Du­rance Williams who en­tered the fi­nal day of the tour­na­ment with the mo­men­tum. Hav­ing shot 71 the day be­fore, he couldn't fin­ish the tour­na­ment strong­ly. In­stead, An­gard Son­ni­lal's con­sis­ten­cy saw him through to fin­ish sec­ond be­hind Bry­den. Soni­lal had shot 76 on the open­ing day to end tied for third with Ethan Hill. He fol­lowed that up with 72 on the sec­ond day be­fore clos­ing out the tour­na­ment with a gross 221 in the Cham­pi­onship flight.

He was nar­row­ly be­hind Bry­den who won the flight with a gross of 220. Chris Richards Jr, who en­dured an in­con­sis­tent tour­na­ment fin­ished third with a gross of 223. Williams fin­ished with the first net score of 212. This was Bry­den's first win since the T&T Golf Open in 2017 and it was the ide­al start to the year for him. He told Guardian Me­dia Sports, "The tour­na­ment was a great one for me es­pe­cial­ly since I've been strug­gling a bit for the last cou­ple of years. It was re­al­ly big for me and my con­fi­dence at the start of this new year."

Bry­den bounced back af­ter a dis­ap­point­ing na­tion­al tri­al in 2021 which he la­belled "was a big up­set". How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted it was an eye-open­er for him that he need­ed to change some things in his game. Now he's look­ing to kick on.

"It was a re­al­ly com­pet­i­tive tour­na­ment. I've got­ten off to a great start win­ning the BC Open. It's my first tour­na­ment for the year so it doesn't get much bet­ter than that. But my goal is re­al­ly more men­tal­ly. I think I need to be more men­tal­ly pre­pared for tour­na­ments to go in there with con­fi­dence and a pos­i­tive at­ti­tude which I thought I did well in the first tour­na­ment. That's what I'm try­ing to do all year. I'm not try­ing to get ahead of my­self," Bry­den said.

Among the ladies, Yeji Lee topped the field with a gross of 157 while Elise La Bor­de was first with a net score of 149. A vi­brant ladies field in­clud­ing the likes of Sarah Ram­phal, Chloe Ajod­ha, Ja­da Charles and Vi­o­let Roopc­hand.

Brechin Cas­tle Open full re­sults:

Cham­pi­onship Flight

Liam Bry­den - 220

An­gad Soni­lal - 221

Chris Richards Jr - 223

First flight

Boola Lag­gan - 229

Kevesh Ram­nath - 236

Chad Singh - 242

Sec­ond flight

Dwayne Ram­lal - 175

Joe Bryant - 177

Mooni­lal Lalchan - 181

Ladies flight

Ye Ji Lee - 165

Elise La Bor­de - 189 (1st net)

Su­per se­niors flight

George Hol­lis - 165

Bill Ram­rat­tan - 145

Steve Dur­gadeen - 153

PIC:

2022 Brechin Cas­tle Open cham­pi­on Liam Bry­den, left, pos­es for a pic­ture with An­gard Son­ni­lal, who placed sec­ond in the Cham­pi­onship flight. PIC­TURE COUR­TESY MICHAEL CHARLES