Latest update December 16th, 2024 9:00 AM
Persaud, Sukhram happy with victory
By Zaheer Mohamed
Avinash Persaud and Christine Sukhram turned in commendable performances to win their respective categories when the Department of Tourism two-day Lusignan Open Golf tournament was contested last weekend.
Club President Aleem Husain (c) with Avinash Persaud (L) and Christine Sukram.
Persaud, the current Guyana open male champion, won the Men’s A flight with 154 gross while Sukhram won the female segment with 171 gross.
Persaud said while he is happy with the win, he was extremely confident heading into the tournament and his win didn’t come as a surprise. “Clearly there is nobody in Guyana who can beat me, it’s easy for me, I just have to go out there and play my game,” he stated emphatically.
Despite the weather Persaud performance was up to par. “I know once I play my natural game, there is no one in Guyana who can compete with me. I played in similar conditions in the Caribbean, so I can adjust to any condition that’s not a problem for me.”
Persaud noted that the young players need to work harder at their game, adding that success come after hard work.
He said that the wants to become one of the best players in the Caribbean. “I want to progress at least in the Caribbean championship, I am confident of doing well on that stage. I played in Trinidad and did well there, I placed second and fourth in the previous Trinidad Open tournaments and I won a club championship there we well.”
“Golf in Guyana is not that big, but we need sponsors, it is a very expensive sport and without sponsorship it’s not possible to go very far. I am looking forward to the Guyana open and wants to be one of the best players in the Caribbean,” he posited.
Sukram, the current Guyana open female champion, stated that she was elated with her performance. “I didn’t expect to play in this tournament, in fact I was out of the country, so I came into the tournament without any practice, but I trusted my ability and was confident of doing well,” she added.
“It’s my first Lusignan Open victory, I wanted to do well, a lot of people expected me to win and I was just trying to do my best. It was challenging on the first day so I had to push myself and things went well for me.”
Sukhram explained that this win boosted her confidence a lot going into other tournaments. “Recently I played in games overseas so I had to acclimatize to course here. I play according to the course, so that’s a motivation for me; I always give it my best shot, I enjoyed playing in these conditions and it’s like an advantage for me.”
In an invited comment, President of the Club, Aleem Hussain said this is probably one of their greatest achievements due to the fact that the tournament was successful despite the rain. He commended the ground staff for doing an amazing job. “They even surprise me; I wanted to pull off this tournament at this time, so I must commend the ground staff. We had some excellent performances, the scores reflected the nature of the competition, the winners had to earn that right and I would like to commend the players as well, especially those who won prizes,” he added.
The President said they have approximately 24 tournaments schedule between now (July) and November which is an amazing agenda. In our first year on the executive we did 44 tournaments and this year we will be doing over 50 tournaments. That by itself will be a record.”
“There are some new numbers and new programmes happening, yesterday (Saturday) we had the American Ambassador and her family here and today (Sunday) we have the Chinese Ambassador brining out his team. So again it has started to show, all the major foreign companies are becoming members of the club which is what our vision was.”
“We were talking to Minister of Communities, Mr. Bulkan and some of the visitors here today are saying that there has to be an 18-hole golf course in Guyana. If we had the land we would have already had such a course, however we are hoping to acquire the land to build same, soonest.”
Hussain said Guyana has some of the best talent in the Caribbean. “These players can go up against any player in the Caribbean. Avinash did well, he is literally unbeatable, but he didn’t have a walk-over, the other players came to beat him, the Women’s championship flight was keenly contested and Christine came out and played well, while Shenella and Joaan were also outstanding.
Hussain expressed gratitude to the sponsors and the media.
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