The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

It wasn't so much the windy conditions as it was her putting that made it difficult for Bahamian exemption player Georgette Rolle to improve on her performance as she ended up at the bottom of the 108-player field at the Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic at the Ocean Golf Club on Paradise Island.

She once again failed in her fifth attempt to make the cut in the tournament, which had to suspend play at least twice because of the heavy winds. Her two rounds of 85-80 for a total of 165 placed her five strokes behind the 106th and 107th players, leaving her with the opportunity to watch the Sunday's final day of competition on the sidelines.

"I think like the last two years, I hit the ball real solid. Of course my putting could improve because 50 per cent of my shots was putting, which was not good," Rolle said. "Putting should only be about thirty per cent of your score, but mine was almost 50 per cent, which kind of showed what really happened."

Rolle, 32, said on the green she was just like her peers from around the world dealing with the windy conditions that forced a couple suspensions and uncompleted rounds on two of the four days of competition, but there was a vast difference in putting the ball in the hole.

"I think I'm just a bit rusty in terms of trying to think my way through the rounds," she reflected. "I saw that on a couple of holes where I made some high numbers, which was detrimental to my score, but more mentally for me than anything else because I had to try and dig my way back out of it.

"I'm just not as sharp as I should be thinking my way through certain situations, but all in all, based on seeing the green and hitting the golf ball, I'm just as good as those girls, but I understand that is their life. Sixty hours out of the week, that's what they do. If I had made the cut and got into the thick of things that would have been great. I would have exceeded a lot of expectations in terms of professional roles."

Rolle, who splits her playing working as an assistant golf pro at Baha Mar, serving as the secretary general for the Bahamas Golf Federation and teaching the junior golfers in her Fourteen Clubs Golf Academy, said there's no excuse, she didn't execute the way she had expected as the Bahamian flag bearer for five out of the six years that the tournament has been played in the Bahamas.

In the initial tournament held in 2013 when officials had to reduce the rounds of golf because of flooding on the course, Rolle missed the cut with scores of 48-49. She came back in 2014 with 83-84 for 167 and was beaten out for the exemption spot by Raquel Riley in 2015, who eventually withdrew after day one.

Rolle bounced back in 2016 for 82-65-167 and had her best showing last year with 76-74-150.

All things considered, Rolle said she was just delighted to be back representing the country as the flag carrier in the season opener for the LPGA for the fourth year. She took the time out to renew her old acquaintances and admitted that she was hoping to beat some of them.

"It does show the difference between a playing professional and a teaching professional," she pointed out.

"I spend my 60 hours doing operational duties and teaching and their 60 hours are spent hitting golf balls and playing golf. But it's cool. I won't take anything away from what I do now.

"Although I don't have the same passion for playing golf at that level, I can still hit the golf ball just like them. I can still dabble in their field a bit and it shows me that if that passion ever comes back, I'm not that far away. But for right now, that passion is close, but my desire is to execute an army of young junior golfers who can far exceed my accomplishments so we can have more Bahamians to cheer on in the future at this level."

With her focus now on her Fourteen Clubs Golf Academy, Rolle said she doesn't see herself trying to pursue the pro tour full time anymore, but she said as she prepares to return to work today, she feels that she will continue to hang around and go for the exemption card to represent the country in the Pure Silk Classic, unless someone else replaces her like Riley did in 2015. She took the final day of competition watching the players, including the world's top female golfer Shanshan Feng in action. She could be seen on the course following Feng, the No.1 ranked player in the Rolex Women's World Golf Rankings.

"I want to thank everyone for their support of me in this event," said Rolle, who was grateful to her caddie Marcus Pratt for trying to keep her mentally tough on the course.

"It's been a long road and I know there are a lot of questions like why do I continue to try out for this et cetera, et cetera, but as long as I am healthy and I feel I have a shot at it, I'm going to go for it.

"I'm not a quitter. I may not be excelling the way that I used to be, but I'm a fighter. I'm going to keep my head up and keep going.

"In the meantime, I'm going to make sure to give back to this game and use a whole lot more people that can take us even further so they can experience what I have over the years that I played in the tournament."

She just has to find a way to putt the ball a lot better whatever the weather brings.