It seems that a new day has dawned at the Ocean View Golf Club! In fact it was more like a bright and exciting resurrection just taking into account features attendant to the club's Annual Memorial Tournament Sunday.

At the helm is a new dynamic young president, Quinton Sherlock, Jr. He is backed by a fired-up membership, committed, as they have demonstrated, to the idea of "looking to the future by honouring the past".

President Sherlock was applauded as he gave a "no punches pulled" expose of non-responsive appeals to the highest levels of Government to "save and help preserve this piece of history, Bermuda's black history that is inherent in Ocean View".

"It is my opinion that by all means my labour Government must not allow this living monument to perish," declared Mr. Sherlock to a host of members and friends crowded on and around the club's putting green. Among them were Finance Minister Paula Cox, Opposition Leader Kim Swan and Speaker of the House of Assembly Stanley Lowe.

Nowadays black Bermudians are monarchs in all of this country's world-renowned golf clubs, reigning from the first tee through to the 19th hole and beyond, including the board rooms. But to many it seemed like only yesterday when ancestors of those blacks could not darken the doors of those clubs, with racism being as rife as it was then. And if they dared to be on the greens for purposes other than as caddies they had to do so between sunrise and most definitely before 8 a.m. or breakfast time when Police had authority to ensure they became "white only" playgrounds.

It should be made clear that blacks were not the only Bermudians discriminated against as were persons of Portuguese descent, such as the late great Louis Moniz.

Such was the background against which Mr. Sherlock spoke. A lecturer at the Bermuda College and a community support worker at the Family Centre, he explained how Ocean View came into existence in 1951 when three black men Bill Pitt, Sr., Erskine Simons and George Lowe, distinguished in their own business and personal lives, "being sick and tired of the restrictions and humiliations they faced attempting to play golf in Bermuda:, took the initiatives leading to acquisition of the course.

The course and its "not so elaborate" clubhouse had been developed for and by officers and men of the sBritish Garrison stationed at Prospect. The above-mentioned trio and other founding fathers secured and redeveloped the course. They capitalised on the personal esteem they had built up over the years through golf with officials in high places, from Government House down.

And the Founding Fathers drawing on their own skills as course managers, using their own personal financial resources developed Ocean View into a potent recreational, integrated recreational centre leading up to and well beyond the 1959 Theatre Boycott when government-sanctioned and subsidised racial barriers tumbled all around.

Mr.Sherlock explained that over the past few years, membership in Ocean View had been on the decline, and the course and club was in jeopardy due mainly to its inability to make a profitable. As one of several golfers who came up through the club's productive youth programme, he added: "As a black Bermudian golfer I am forever indebted to Ocean View."

"As a committee we are mobilising to rejuvenate club membership. A number of initiatives are being undertaken. The junior program that produced some of the best golfers in Bermuda from its inception is being revamped," he pointed out.

Mr.Sherlock said the club's membership was far from tolerant of the manner Ocean View had been ignored despite representations to the highest authorities.

"Recently much has been done to upgrade one public golf course, and another has been leased for hotel development. Government investments in Ocean View would allow all interested parties to grow and benefit."

Projects have been outlined that would greatly improve the course that would enhance the club's ability to attract additional members and nurture tomorrow's top golfers and improve its bottom line. But correspondence to the highest officials have gone totally unanswered for months on end.

At the conclusion of his speech, Mr. Sherlock invited the crowd inside the club where he and Minister Paula Cox unveiled portraits of the Founding Big Three Fathers as well as cedar boards with names of various presidents and others playing pivotal roles in the growth and Development of the club.

It was not surprising, that the Memorial Day's programme began with a sunrise service having regard to how the founding members were obliged to start their golfing at sunrise, back in the day.

Following the unveiling of a delectable buffet lunch awaited everyone. That was followed by distribution of memorial trophies and a playoff for the big money of the day.