The par­ents of teenage golf tal­ents Ja­da Charles and Chole Ajod­ha are call­ing on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Golf As­so­ci­a­tion (TTGA) to ex­plain why their daugh­ters have been rel­e­gat­ed to re­serves on the na­tion­al team for the 2024 Ho­er­man Cup Tour­na­ment, which will tee off on Ju­ly 29 in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

Af­ter set­ting out the cri­te­ria for se­lec­tion, which in­clud­ed: a fe­male play­er shoot­ing a score of 12 over or bet­ter is au­to­mat­i­cal­ly se­lect­ed for the na­tion­al team; a fe­male play­er with the best four scores un­der 16 over par (com­bined) will be se­lect­ed au­to­mat­i­cal­ly for the na­tion­al team, with oth­er play­ers be­ing de­cid­ed up­on by the se­lec­tors; if no play­er shoots the au­to­mat­ic score, the se­lec­tion com­mit­tee re­serves the right to se­lect the na­tion­al team and past per­for­mances rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ac­cord­ing to the cri­te­ria, the se­lec­tion com­mit­tee, in mak­ing their de­ci­sion, will ex­am­ine dis­ci­pline, team­work, punc­tu­al­i­ty, and scores in past na­tion­al tour­na­ments.

Fol­low­ing the tri­als, which took place over two days at four venues: St An­drew’s, Pointe-a-Pierre, To­ba­go, and Mil­len­ni­um, the fi­nal re­sults tab­u­lat­ed showed Vic­to­ria Seenath (321), Chole Ajod­ha (330), Ja­da Charles (332), Elise La Bor­de (335), and Zoe Cor­reia (339).

How­ev­er, via an email dat­ed Ju­ly 1, 2024, to mem­ber clubs, the se­lec­tion com­mit­tee, which com­pris­es T&T Golf As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Wayne Bap­tiste, Lennox Wilkin­son, na­tion­al coach Chris Richards Sr, Christo­pher McMil­lan, and Michael Charles named Seenath, Cor­reia, and La Bor­de as the na­tion­al team with Charles, Ajod­ha as re­serves. Mean­while, Ye Ji Lee, who did not take part in the tri­als, was se­lect­ed as a re­serve.

With Ajod­ha and Charles hav­ing four scores and fin­ish­ing sec­ond and third re­spec­tive­ly, their fa­thers, Ju­nior Charles and David Ajod­ha, start­ed ask­ing ques­tions.

On Ju­ly 16, this ed­i­tor sent nine ques­tions to TTGA pres­i­dent Bap­tiste and copied Kr­ish­na Samai (sec­re­tary) and Garth Chevrotiere (as­sis­tant sec­re­tary).

On Ju­ly 18, the pres­i­dent re­spond­ed in five para­graphs, mak­ing men­tion of a sto­ry pub­lished by this news­pa­per on Ju­ly 7, 2024, and de­clin­ing my re­quest for an in­ter­view. The pres­i­dent did not re­spond to any of the ques­tions sent to him. When con­tact­ed by Guardian Sports, Charles ex­plained, “First off, there were no con­firmed dates for the mil­len­ni­um tri­als un­til the 26th of June, which was the sec­ond day of the To­ba­go tri­als. They (TTGA) sched­uled the dates for the 29th and 30th, which is bare­ly two days’ no­tice. My daugh­ter (Ja­da) was in To­ba­go un­der the care of Chloe’s par­ents.

“Ja­da and Chloe had pri­or plans for that same week­end in To­ba­go since March, and they ad­just­ed their tick­ets and plans to ac­com­mo­date the To­ba­go tri­als. Chloe’s dad told Wayne (TTGA Pres­i­dent) that Chloe and Ja­da would not be avail­able for the mil­len­ni­um tri­als as they had pri­or arrange­ments.”

Charles added, “Af­ter the team was an­nounced, I called Wayne to find out why my daugh­ter and Chloe were on the re­serve list af­ter they had sec­ond and third best scores in the five ladies from five rounds, re­spec­tive­ly, to which Wayne replied that he doesn’t have to an­swer to me or any in­di­vid­ual. In my hon­est opin­ion, my daugh­ter, Chloe, and two oth­er in­di­vid­u­als were vic­timised be­cause they did not re­turn to par­tic­i­pate in the Mil­len­ni­um tri­als.

“I heard the team wasn’t se­lect­ed based on scores but rather on dis­ci­pline and com­mit­ment to the team, but my ques­tion is, can you prove that my daugh­ter, Chloe, or any of the oth­er in­di­vid­u­als that were left out of the team lacked those prin­ci­ples that were stat­ed?”

David Ajod­ha, Chloe’s fa­ther, said, “On June 25 and 26, 2024, we had tri­als in Tabo­go. While play­ing on the sec­ond day (the 26th), Wayne met us on the ninth tee box and asked that I get Chloe back to Trinidad for tri­als on June 29 and 30. Af­ter try­ing to ex­plain that I brought my en­tire fam­i­ly to Tabo­go for a hol­i­day and had al­ready paid for an apart­ment and rent­ed a ve­hi­cle, Wayne said, “‘And par­ty.’” I said, yes. He then said, ‘Well, we’ll see what is more im­por­tant,’ and drove off.” 

Ajod­ha re­vealed that “Based on the cri­te­ria, both Chloe and Ja­da had al­ready played five and six rounds, re­spec­tive­ly, and the cri­te­ria is the best four rounds out of eight rounds. Chloe and Ja­da fin­ished sec­ond and third, re­spec­tive­ly.

“When we tried to find out why they were not picked, the an­swer was dis­ci­pline. So it’s my be­lief that they were vic­timised be­cause they didn’t go back to Trinidad for the fi­nal two days, al­though they had com­plet­ed the four rounds that were re­quired.”

How­ev­er, dur­ing the men’s tri­als, the pat­tern of par­tic­i­pa­tion was sim­i­lar to that of the women, with no play­er play­ing more than two tri­als.

Chris Richards Jr topped the men’s 13-play­er field with a best score of 285 from his four rounds, fol­lowed by Liam Bry­den with 290, and Ryan Pe­ters, whose name is not among the 13 play­ers that con­test­ed the tri­als, and has no scores to show that he par­tic­i­pat­ed in the tri­als, was se­lect­ed to the team. Alex Kan­goo, who was sixth in the tri­als with a score of 304 is the re­serve.

Guardian Sports was al­so re­li­ably in­formed that there is an out­stand­ing mat­ter that the TTGA has re­fused to ad­dress for more than a year now that in­volv­ingd mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Ju­nior team that rep­re­sent­ed T&T in the Cay­man Is­lands in 2023. Michael Charles, the Pres­i­dent of Point-a-Pierre Golf Club, who was the man­ag­er of that team was re­cent­ly ap­point­ed to serve as man­ag­er again of a Ju­nior team de­spite that mat­ter be­ing un­re­solved and mem­bers of the TTGA are con­cerned. 

T&T Women’s Team

1. Vic­to­ria Seenath, 321

2. Zoe Cor­reia, 339

3. Elise La Bor­de, 335

4. Ja­da Charles, Re­serve 332

5. Chloe Ajod­ha, Re­serve 330

6. Ye Ji Lee, Re­serve, No Score

T&T Men’s Team

1. Chris Richards Jr., 285

2. Liam Bry­den, 290

3. Ryan Pe­ters: No score

4. Ryan Gomez, 302

5. Ay­den Ali, 302

6. Jean-Marc Chevrotiere, 299

7. Alex Kan­goo, Re­serve 304