Press Releases
Generals, Buccaneers and Max Pak lead in JMMB Cup
Advantage Generals, SportsMax Max Pak and the Buccaneers of Caymanas scored contrasting wins on match day one, the first of three preliminary match days, to take the early lead in the JMMB Cup at the Caymanas Golf Course yesterday.
The JMMB Cup, which mirrors the world-famous Ryder Cup match-play tournament, had three head-to-head team matches with 10 individual pairings within each match. There were a total of 30 individual pairings in the three head-to-head matches.
The Advantage Generals, captained by Sean Morris, scored the largest margin of victory, brushing aside the Sandals Surfers winning 7 of their individual matches and losing 3.
Although his team benefitted from a walk-over, skipper Morris thought his team, which was playing on the Caymanas Course for the first time thoroughly outplayed the Surfers. “I expected to come out victorious today, however to win 7-3 puts a big smile on my face,” Morris said. “Actually, I thought the match would have been a little close, but I knew we would have the upper hand at the end of the day.”
Contrastingly, the pre-tournament favourites Buccaneers of Caymanas needed a sudden death play-off to beat the Ocean Spray Springs after both teams played to a 5-5 stalemate in their allotted 10 individual matches.
The Springs was seemingly headed for an easy victory, as they were tied with the Buccaneers after nine matches and being 5-up in the 10th match with five holes to play. However, Paul Chin pulled off a magical recovery against Tony Gooden storming from the brink of defeat to win the last five holes, halving his match and tying the contest at 5-5, thus forcing the sudden death play-off.
Robert Chin, who had earlier beaten Carl Bruce in an ill-tempered match 3&2, again triumphed in the sudden death play-off giving the Buccaneers victory. Buccaneers skipper Metry Seaga was elated for the win. “It was a tight match as you could see; we had some tight matches all along the way and we came out at the bottom end of some of them. However, my team fought valiantly to win the play-off and as they say ‘an ugly win is better than a pretty loss’, so I’ll take it,” Seaga said philosophically.
Bolstered by wins from Jeffrey Dujon (2&1), Gary Sinclair (2&1), Ian Moore (3&2), Oliver McIntosh (4&3) and Radcliffe Knibbs (5&4), SportsMax Max Pak defeated the other pre-tournament favourites the JMMB Eagles 6-4 in the day’s other match. Max Pak captain Chris Dehring said he was pleased with the performance of his charges, especially against one of the more fancied teams. “Overall it was a really good team effort, the team spirit is really good and to come out 6-4 against supposedly one of the media favourites is a credit to the team,” Dehring posited.
After the first leg of the JMMB Cup, Advantage General top Zone 1 with 3 points while SportsMax Max Pak and Buccaneers of Caymanas are tied at the top of Zone 2 with 3 points. The four-leg tournament resumes in two weeks time on June 21 at the Constant Spring Golf Course in St Andrew.
