Kwesi Mugisa, Staff Reporter
Roger Jay (right), chief executive officer and president of the International Corporate Event Management and Advertising Network (ICEMAN) a Canadian-based company. - Contributed
JAMAICA WILL for the first time host and participate in the Kia Motors-sponsored International Long Drive Golf World championships to be held on September 24 at the Caymanas Golf and Country Club.
Long Drive Golf is a relatively new form of the traditional sport and was born out of the desire to move laterally with
the game, increasing the range of its appeal and diversify its audience and participation.
Roger Jay, chief executive officer and president of the International Corporate Event Management and Advertising Network (ICEMAN) a Canadian-based company, has been instrumental in creating and bringing this modified format of the game to life.
"We did an evaluation of the game and quickly realised that when you're in a bar, for example, after someone has played a game of golf, the discussion of the average golfer is not about how good the putt was but how far someone hit the ball off of the tee box," Jay remarked.
The Golf Long Driver International governing body for sanctioned long-drive competitions has been formed to govern this new variation of the game. The game is played on a grid that is 400 yards and 40 yards wide and for a drive to count it must be over 200 yards. Each player is given five minutes to hit six balls.
HIGH ENERGY, HIGH IMPACT
Whereas traditional golf is perceived as a game requiring a lot of silence for concentration and etiquette, Long Drive Golf looks to get the crowd as vocally involved as possible. Jay stipulated that the game itself is very high energy and high impact.
"When Tiger Woods is putting, you can hear a pin drop from a mile away. You can have 5,000 people there and it's totally silent. With Long Drive, when someone hits the ball, the 2,000 or so people in the stands explode. It's like fireworks ... Soon as they make that hit and you know it's gonna be a long one, the crowd explodes," he commented. This particular form of the game has now been implemented in Australia, Japan, Germany, Sweden, Canada and the United States. The Jamaica Golf Association has now brought the programme to the island and will begin play in about 20 qualifying events geared towards assembling an international team to participate in the September Championships. The team will comprise five hitters: a senior man over 50, a female hitter under 50 and three adult men.
Jay was very pleased that the tournament could be hosted in Jamaica and looks forward to the partnership.
"We will be producing nine television shows here that
will be aired all over the world and I'm hoping that Jamaica gets recognised for hosting an international-calibre type
competition."
