Barbados Today

Three local golfers, Tom O’Sullivan, Horace Cobham and Scott Stollmeyer, left the island on Tuesday for Colombia to represent Barbados in the regional leg of the Mercedes Trophy, a worldwide invitational amateur golf series.

They qualified to take part in that tournament after winning the local leg of the Trophy held in June this year at Royal Westmoreland and will compete against nine other countries – Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, Panama and Uruguay.

Penny Johnson, sales manager – Mercedes Benz passenger cars at local distributor Simpson Motors, explained that if any one of the three are in winner’s row in Colombia, he would then go on to compete in the World Final in Germany in October.

“Over the past two decades the Mercedes Trophy has become one of the most fascinating amateur tournaments in the world with now over 60 000 participants from more than 60 countries.

“It is held primarily for customers and a few potential customers of the brand and we are extremely excited to be sending a team from Barbados to represent. We are looking forward to them doing well in Colombia and, hopefully, going on to represent us in Germany in the worldwide competition.”

O’Sullivan, who has been playing golf for over 45 years, is looking forward to the regional competition.

“I totally enjoyed the local tournament. It was lots of fun and pretty enjoyable. I am definitely looking forward to playing in Colombia with different people and on a different course and hoping to represent Barbados well.”

Agreeing with this, Cobham, who has been playing for almost 20 years, said: “The local tournament was excellent and was well organised. It brought out golfers who just had good fun and, of course, it had the fantastic outcome of getting to participate in the Regional and possibly even the World Final.”

For Stollmeyer, a golfer for 32 years, representing Barbados is nothing new.

“I have represented Barbados approximately eight times overseas including Argentina at the Latin American Amateur Championships last year. So I hope to do well as part of the Barbados team this week in Colombia.”