The Cayman Islands Golf Long Drive Team recently competed in the Iceman International Long Drive Championships, held at Caymanas golf course in Jamaica. The event challenged some of the world’s longest hitters of a golf ball to hit a drive as far as possible into the confines of a grid measuring 400 yards long by 40 yards wide and consisted of both team and individual events.
Cayman’s team, consisting of Michael Wight, Tracy Moore, Eustace Jeffers, Robert Chilman (senior) and Kerry Maher (lady), competed against world superpowers USA, Australia, Canada and Japan along with Caribbean heavyweights Jamaica.
In its first match, Cayman went head to head with Jamaica and narrowly lost as the Jamaicans took advantage of local knowledge and early practice to catch the Cayman Team a bit cold. However, from that point on the Cayman Team never looked back.
In the second match Cayman received the toughest of draws, being matched against the teams ranked 1 and 2 in the world, USA and Australia. Whilst the super powers had size and experience on their side, Cayman took advantage of camaraderie and sound management strategy to cause the biggest shock in the history of the event in beating both teams by a comfortable margin. Michael Wight powered the longest drive by a Cayman hitter to 349 yards. All of the Cayman men split the center of the driving grid with hits well in excess of 300 yards. Little Kerry Maher, whilst ½ the weight of some of the female hitters showed great consistency in hitting the target in excess of 250 yards time and time again.
Elated by the victory, Cayman’s representatives pressed on into the individual events. Once again, every Cayman player excelled. Michael Wight finished ranked number 5 in the world, again hitting narrowly under 350 yards. The winner of this event was the USA # 1 man who drove the ball 391 yards to win.
Robert Chilman finished ranked number 2 senior in the world and number 1 senior in the Caribbean with drives well over 300 yards.
In the final event all the teams went head to head for the title of world champions. Whilst the pressure of live radio and TV broadcasts appeared to affect some of the favorites, again the Cayman Team rose to the occasion and shocked the rest consistently hitting the center of the grid well in excess of 300 yards. At the final count up the Cayman Islands Team came third, ironically behind only the Australian and the USA teams that they had earlier beaten.
President of the Cayman Islands Golf Association and Team Manager Robert Woods commented that he was proud of the Cayman players who had stuck together and exceeded all expectations. He also thanked the National Airline, Cayman Airways, who once again stepped in with sponsorship to aid a local sports association and local athletes to compete in an international event.
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