Mason man to beat in ‘Seniors’

ORVILLE LONDON, the Chief Secretary of the Tobago House of Assembly, will be present at final day of the European Seniors Golf Tour’s Tobago Plantations Seniors Classic on Sunday to present the champion professional with the first place trophy and a cheque for US$37,500 it was confirmed yesterday. London will make the presentation at the conclusion of the tournament that is being staged at the Tobago Plantations Golf and Beach Resort and which promises to be a real festival of golf over the next three days. The Tobago Plantations Seniors Classic began in earnest on Wednesday with a Pro-Am competition that brought together 22 teams of three Amateur golfers with some of the Seniors Tour’s best players as well as staging a “Junior Clinic” at which local children given golf lessons by some of the top Seniors players.

The team from Trinidad and Tobago’s Home Construction Limited (HCL) took first place in the Pro-Am yesterday with a winning total of 181 points —  two ahead of the Tobago House of Assembly team.  The HCL team of Rasheed Ali, Jamsheed Ali and Farouk Bhopa, playing alongside Irish professional Denis O’Sullivan, scored 92 points on the second and final day of the Pro-Am to add to their effort of 89 from Wednesday’s first day of play and take the first prize. The three lucky Amateurs enjoyed a wonderful two-day competition and were awarded with some great golfing prizes at the prize-giving ceremony at the Hilton Tobago, which forms part of the Tobago Plantations Golf and Beach Resort. Tobago’s House of Assembly team (Anthony Trotman, Christine Yaap and Fitzroy Collins), who shared the lead after round one of the Pro-Am, finished in second place with 179 points.

They were closely followed by their fellow first round leaders from York Garments, who took third place overall with 178 points. The Tobago Plantations Seniors Classic begins today, and will see the cream of the European Seniors Tour going head to head for that top prize of US$37,500. Englishman Carl Mason is the defending champion and will be among the favourites to score what would be the tenth victory of his remarkable Seniors Tour Career. Mason joined the Tour in the middle of the 2003 season and since then has dominated the circuit, winning the Order of Merit in both 2003 and 2004 and establishing himself as the undisputed Seniors Tour Number One.

The 51-year-old beat Australian David Good by three strokes at the 6752 yard par 72 Tobago Plantations Beach and Golf and Beach Resort last year, with 2003 champion Terry Gale of Australia finishing in third place alongside South Africa’s Jeff Hawkes. Scotland’s John Chillas finished second to Gale in Tobago two seasons ago, as well as in 2002, before taking fifth place at the event last season. The 58-year-old, who has two European Seniors Tour victories to his name, can again have a big influence in this, the second event of the 2005 Seniors Tour Schedule. O’Sullivan, meanwhile, is the man in form after opening the 2005 Seniors Tour season with victory at the DGM Barbados Open last week. The Irishman, who celebrates his 57th birthday today, won the first event of 2005 by three strokes from John Grace of the USA and will be hoping to continue that rich vein of form in Tobago. (Michael Gibbons is the European Seniors Tour Press Officer)