Junior Orange Bowl golf tournament not just about winning and losing for players
Emily Odwin and Gabriella Chavez were nowhere near the top of the leaderboard in the girls’ division of the Junior Orange Bowl International Golf Championship on Friday at Biltmore Golf Course in Coral Gables.
Playing together, Odwin shot a 4-over-par 75 and Chavez checked in with a 17-over-par 78.
So, why were they all smiles as they walked off the 18th green?
Mainly, after meeting each other for the first time before they whacked their first tee shots, they quickly started to develop a friendship. On a golf course, a good golf score can go far, far away with a few three-putts here and there. However, Odwin and Chavez also know a lasting friendship can endure and expand while strolling the green grass of a golf course.
Some might call these two meeting a cultural exchange.
Odwin, 15, is from Barbados and Chavez, 16, hails five minutes from the Biltmore course they were playing.
“The neat part of this tournament is meeting people from around the world,” said Odwin, who at her young age is the 16-18 Caribbean champion. Odwin competed in a long list of sports — karate, soccer, open-water skiing among them — before settling on golf.
On Friday, Odwin was nursing tendinitis in one of her legs but battled on.
“I started icing it on the back nine,” she said.” Odwin, who started playing golf at age 8, said her eventual goal is to play college golf in the United States.
Chavez, who started playing golf at age 11, said: “The social aspect, talking to people, is great. Emily and I talked a lot on the course. I found out, and it surprised me, that there is no high school golf in Barbados.”
The two will get a chance to exchange more tales, information and culture as they are paired once again in the second round Saturday of the four-day tournament.
“It will be fun,” they both agreed.
Of being 17 strokes back, Gabriella added with a laugh, “I am pretty sure I’m not going to win this thing.”
Tied for the lead in the girls’ division were Yael Berger of Switzerland, Lucie Malchirand of France and Misuki Hashimoto of Japan, all shooting even-par 71.
In the boys’ first-round competition, there was a two-way tie between Justin Hastings of the Cayman Islands and Andrey Borges of Brazil, both at 1-under 70.
