T&T's pro­fes­sion­al golfer Ben Mar­tin will lead the lo­cal charge in the 117th edi­tion of the T&T Golf Open which gets un­der­way on Fri­day (March 14).

Mar­tin will be aim­ing to win the Men's Pro­fes­sion­al cat­e­go­ry for a record sev­enth time. He tied Car­los "Sexy" Baynes' tal­ly of six when he took the crown in 2022, the last year there was ac­tion for the pro play­ers.

Mar­tin will be look­ing to take home the US $10,000 first prize and add to his vic­to­ry at the Brechin Cas­tle, Cou­va in Jan­u­ary. He is al­so the reign­ing Ja­maican Open cham­pi­on af­ter his win in Mon­tego Bay in No­vem­ber 2024.

Among his chal­lengers are fel­low T&T en­trants An­tho­ny Gill and Chris Richards Sr along with Ja­maicans Justin Bur­rowes and Se­bert Walk­er Jr.

The Pro­fes­sion­al field is ex­pect­ed to in­clude play­ers from the USA and Bermu­da.

Mar­tin is hop­ing to give his all say­ing: "I am 100 per cent com­mit­ted to every shot and let the rest hap­pen. There is no guar­an­tee in golf. I have been lucky enough to win the tour­na­ment six times in my life."

The golf ace told Guardian Me­dia Sport he is ready to face the com­pe­ti­tion be­ing host­ed by the T&T Golf As­so­ci­a­tion (TTGA).

"My train­ing lead­ing up to the tour­na­ment has been good. It is nice to see how the course has changed. I think we will have a chal­leng­ing course for the 2025 Trinidad and To­ba­go Open," said Mar­tin.

This year's T&T Golf Open will in­clude a Ladies Flight for the first time. An­oth­er first is that the ac­tion will be con­test­ed in both Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Ladies Mas­ters (60 years and over) and Su­per Se­niors (70 years and over) as well as the Third Flight play­ers will take cen­tre stage in To­ba­go at the Mag­dale­na each and Golf Re­sort al­so from to­mor­row un­til Sun­day (March 14-16).

The Pro­fes­sion­al, First and Sec­ond Flight com­peti­tors will gath­er at the St An­drews Golf Course in Mo­ka, Mar­aval from March 18-23.

Head­ling the in­au­gur­al Ladies sec­tion is top lo­cal play­er, last year's Caribbean 4 Ball Over-25 cham­pi­on Vic­to­ria Seenath along with 13-year-old Is­abelle Ramdeen. They will go up against Ja­maicans Jo­di Munn-Bar­row and Mat­tea Is­sa. Mon-Bar­row won the 2023 Re­gion­al Over-25 Four Ball ho­n­ours. The Bar­ba­di­an trio of Ze­ri­na Bel­grave, Ca­r­ole Jn Marie and Dawn Bis­combe are in the line-up as well.

Ramdeen is elat­ed at the in­clu­sion of women.

She said, "It is very good en­cour­age­ment for young girls like my­self. This gives us an op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op our game by com­pet­ing with oth­er ladies from the Caribbean." She shared that "train­ing is go­ing well, just tight­en­ing up a cou­ple of things. (I) should be ready to tee off."

Munn-Bar­row, the pres­i­dent of the Ja­maica Golf As­so­ci­a­tion and Sec­re­tary of the Caribbean Golf As­so­ci­a­tion is back­ing the ad­di­tion of ladies.

"It's al­ways great when we can in­clude women in any ma­jor event and I am hap­py that the TTGA made the de­ci­sion to fa­cil­i­tate this," said Munn-Bar­row adding that de­spite her work de­mands, she is aim­ing to ex­cel.

"I have been trav­el­ling a lot for work and so my ex­pec­ta­tions are not as high as they nor­mal­ly would be but I am plan­ning to give it my best. "Twen­ty-four (24) women have reg­is­tered so far."

Ja­maican Zan­dre Roye will be re­turn­ing to de­fend the Cham­pi­onships Di­vi­sion. Roye scored 292 to win the 2024 top prize ahead of lo­cals Zi­co Cor­reia (301) and Chris Richards Jr, the win­ners in 2022 and 2023, re­spec­tive­ly.

Roye is ea­ger to re­turn, say­ing: "I am look­ing for­ward to de­fend­ing my cham­pi­onship. This will be my third time play­ing in the T&T Open. It is a tour­na­ment I look for­ward to every year and win­ning last year in To­ba­go was a won­der­ful ex­pe­ri­ence and over­all a big suc­cess for me and my golf­ing jour­ney."

Liam Bry­den is in the line-up this year. He is look­ing to be ready for the chal­lenge.

"My ex­pec­ta­tions for the tour­na­ment is to play how I know I can play and stay fo­cused and don’t al­low my mind to stray. I have not had my best stuff last edi­tions of the open due to putting too much pres­sure on my­self. I would like to go in­to the tour­na­ment and just en­joy my­self and just stay in the present," said Bry­den.

Bar­rdian Christo­pher Jack­man, 18, will be one hop­ing to up­stage Roye. Jack­man re­cent­ly won the Rock­ley Open in Bar­ba­dos.

Some 200 golfers from over 10 coun­tries have in­di­cat­ed their in­ten­tion to com­pete.

Pres­i­dent of the TTGA, Wayne Bap­tiste, says for­eign play­ers will test the skill of the T&T golfers.

He said, "At present, we have close to 130 play­ers reg­is­tered for Trinidad and 100 for To­ba­go. We have 16 coun­tries (Guyana, Suri­name, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Colom­bia, Puer­to Ri­co, St Lu­cia, St Kitts Nevis, Bermu­da, Bar­ba­dos, Ba­hamas, Ja­maica, Cana­da, USA and Unit­ed King­dom). Sure­ly, it is go­ing to be a tough out­ing for our lo­cal play­ers."

Speak­ing at the launch of the T&T Golf Open on March 6 at the Swing Golf Sim­u­la­tor & Lounge in New­town, Port-of-Spain re­cent­ly, Bap­tiste said the Spe­cial Olympic Golf pro­gramme will ben­e­fit from the pro­ceeds from the tour­na­ment.

"From March 18, we will be host­ing a Two Ball Bet­ter Ball com­pe­ti­tion where the pro­ceeds with go to­wards the de­vel­op­ment of kids with dis­abil­i­ties who play golf," said Bap­tiste.

The spon­sors are the Prime Min­is­ter Sports and Cul­ture Fund, Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T, NGC, TT Mort­gage Bank, First Cit­i­zens Bank, Blue Wa­ters, Eteck, Vibes Wear (Ja­maica) and the Na­tion­al Lot­tery Con­trol Board (NL­CB).

Sched­ule for the 117th T&T Golf Open

March 14-16

Di­vi­sions-Ladies, Su­per Se­niors, Mas­ters, Third Flight, Plan­ta­tions Golf Course, Mag­dale­na Beach and Golf Re­sort, Low­lands To­ba­go

March 18-23

Di­vi­sions-Pro­fes­sion­al, Cham­pi­onships, First, Sec­ond Flights, St An­drews Golf Course, Mo­ka, Mar­aval, Trinidad.