The Tribune

No one in the family remembers exactly where or why LeRoy Bowe picked up golf as a hobby. They just know he used to tell the story of how much he loved it, the feel of the swing, the ball arcing high in the air and the extreme satisfaction of its landing where you wanted it to go, so far away.

As a young black Bahamian, he waited until the sun was beginning to set and the day’s players had deserted the golf course at what used to be called The County Club on Cable Beach. He’d head out, swinging the single club he owned, gather balls left behind, and practice – and practice and practice some more until it was too dark to see the trajectory of the ball.

Bowe was blessed with natural athletic ability among other traits, movie star good looks, a sense of humour, a twinkle in his eye and a love of life and sport. He was, frankly speaking, the perfect candidate to become the first black Bahamian golf pro. And wherever he travelled, he did the sport and the country proud.

Later in life, he would set a new standard for sailing, racing his native sloop Jiffy in a way that no other sailor had done at the time, outfitting crew in bright orange and blue, insisting they turn out for practice days prior to a regatta, trying out various sails, practising tacking, gybing and other manoeuvres, urging that they learn the rules of racing instead of yelling ‘Starboard’ even if they were on port.

This week, Roy Bowe was celebrated with a golf shoot-out in his honour at the Ocean Club Golf Club. A trophy was named for him. It was only fitting. In 1968, Bowe founded the Bahamas Professional Golf Association. When he died in 2012 at age 78, golfers from humble beginnings who had been inspired by this man who played with celebrities but always had time for them, lamented the lack of Bahamian golf pros at resorts in The Bahamas.

Seeing Roy Bowe back in the news brought back so many memories of unforgettable times with him and his wife, Susan, their children – BREA President Christine Wallace-Whitfield among them – listening to his dreams of creating the “most breathtaking resort The Bahamas has ever seen” in Emerald Bay, Exuma (now home to Sandals and Grand Isle), watching him cut the ribbon at the Comfort Suites Hotel on Paradise Island as a Bahamian not afraid to invest in his own country, my husband and I laughing so hard at one of his famed Boxing Day parties that we would be holding our sides trying to catch our breath.

But there is one tribute that, despite all the accolades of the successful businessman, athlete, husband, father, grandfather, seems to go unnoticed. It is the historic impact he had on politics.

Never a man to accept a nomination though no doubt he was offered many, he was a keen observer of the political climate whose opinion was often sought by decision-makers. There was a time when Roy Bowe was as staunch a PLP as the founding father of the nation. Mention any other party and Roy, who did not abide nonsense, would think you could not be worth taking the time to listen to. He was a proud Bahamian and the PLP was the party of the people. But Roy Bowe was also an Exumian and one day he had just seen enough. The drug trafficking of the 1980s, the pay-offs, the imploding of a culture of honesty made him bristle. He was watching his country, his beloved country that had lost its moral compass, go down the drain. He made a decision and a call. The diehard PLP turned FNM.

The year was 1992. They say to this day that when Roy Bowe turned FNM the country’s political history somersaulted. The kid who practised with a single golf club as darkness fell on an empty golf course and lived to be a hero had turned his back on the only political party he ever believed in. His decision stood as all the testament the country needed to feel the FNM was no longer a party just for the elite.

Roy Bowe carried the tide of the Gulfstream with him.

August 1992 came and Hubert Ingraham won the election that year. I can still see Roy Bowe jogging down the long stretch of pure white sand beach in Exuma where we always stayed with the family. Later that month, we were there and watched him take off for his run. He gained speed but before he got away from us, we could see the smile on his face and the occasional nod of his head as each wave hit the shoreline washing away the history of what had been there before.

Applaud those foreign petition signatures

If I read the criticism of the change.org petition urging a halt to the exploration for oil in The Bahamas correctly, the critics are claiming that a high percentage of the signatories are foreign. Geez, so is the company proposing the drilling. What am I missing here? It’s okay to drill and be from somewhere else but not to be opposed to the drilling and be from somewhere else?

People all over the world revere the beauty of the waters of The Bahamas. Remember its breathtaking colours were spotted from space with astronaut Kelly calling the Exumas the most beautiful waters in the world.

Whether you are for or against, you have to be impressed by the fact that nearly 50,000 people cared enough to take the time to express their view and affix their signature online to a petition. It will be most interesting to see how a government ignores a petition with so many signatures.

West Grand Bahama and Bimini MP Pakesia Parker-Edgecombe’s call to consider a referendum is what we should be exploring.