Seven years after he launched his charitable golf tournament, Ross (Blackie) Talbot started to fear the fast-growing event in his name was becoming a burden for his son Clement and other organisers.But it has taken another 14 years for Clem to decide to finally call time on the annual sporting fixture, with the last tournament to be held in April.His late father, a former member of the famous musical Talbot Brothers, saw the tournament grow in popularity each year and worried that Clem and the management committee were becoming overwhelmed with organising it.Clem Talbot tells The Royal Gazette that wasn’t initially the case but he has started to feel the stress in recent years.Even on a recent vacation, he says, he found himself on his computer conducting business for the tournament. Those kinds of demands prompted Mr Talbot to decide to make this year’s 20th event the last.There were other reasons, too, like wanting to go out while the tournament was still recognised as one of the biggest fundraising events locally, with more than $3 million raised for over 75 charities. That’s an achievement Mr Talbot and his committee are extremely proud of and they have already set themselves a target of $400,000 for this year, which would take them past the $4 million milestone.Magnificent success indeed for a tournament that started as a surprise event for ‘Blackie’ Talbot’s 75th birthday in 1993, when 28 players competed in that first year at Castle Harbour. To the former musician, whom his son says became somewhat reclusive after retiring from entertaining, it was only meant to be a round of golf involving a foursome, but the plans quickly began to change.“He started taking up golf again when I started playing he was the Ocean View champion many years ago after taking up golf in his 40s,” Mr Talbot says of his father.“When I took the game up about 25 years ago, we played together occasionally and my father was extremely good for a person in his late 70s and he played right up until his passing in his 83rd year. So on his 75th birthday I said to him ‘dad, 75th is a milestone, what do you want?’. ‘I don’t need anything’, he said, which was true.“He said ‘you think you can get off from the bank and maybe you and I can play against another twosome?’. I said ‘yeah, dad, I can do that’. I was on the phone talking to a very long-time friend, Walter Lister, who knew my parents even before he came into politics.”He says Mr Lister suggested a surprise golf tournament and he liked the idea, quickly getting in touch with his father’s closest friends.“Everyone I called rearranged their schedule to say ‘yes, I’ll be out there’,” says Mr Talbot. “It was 28 of them that first year and he still didn’t know I think I told him the two guys we were playing against and when he saw all of his friends who he hadn’t seen for years, the old ‘Blackie’ Talbot came out. He was excited to see them and went into his old charismatic personality. He said ‘what are you doing down here?’.“Danny Fagundo said ‘Blackie, we’re here for you, this is your birthday, isn’t it?’. We played the tournament and had it planned for everybody to come over to my house afterwards for the prizes. No one wanted to leave and, incidentally, my father won his birthday tournament and his partner was George (Ricky) Swan. We have about 30 players who have played every year.”Adds Mr Talbot: “Unbeknown to me, Danny Fagundo and the late Fritz Reiter took up a hat and collected $750 and brought it to my father and said ‘Blackie, we have had so much fun. We are all so busy in our individual lives that we don’t take time out to interact with each other and we had such a great time here, the camaraderie, the fellowship, the friendship, donate this money to the charity of your choice [which was Summerhaven] with a condition that you hold it again for charity’. That’s how it started.”‘Blackie’ lived to see eight tournaments in his name before he died in 2000. It was already growing every year as more and more players signed up to compete in the charitable event.Mr Talbot says: “John McFaul, a big fan of the Talbot Brothers, was the person who basically took the mantle, he and I, with regards to developing a charitable tournament with prizes and rules.“The founding organising committee was John McFaul, the chairman, myself, George Swan, Millard Beach and Altimon Roberts. My father said, maybe in the seventh year, ‘son, I’m very proud of what you and the committee have done in my name but this is getting too big’. He saw the amount of effort and time I was spending stuffing envelopes and mailing out invitations and plus having a full-time job. I said ‘no dad, I can handle it, it’s not an issue’. He felt it was becoming a massive burden. He was proud of it but he knew it was becoming a monster.“He came around and gave advice and support but wasn’t actively involved. It exceeded my expectations. We didn’t plan it to grow to this extent and I believe that one of the things that made it successful was that the tournament was about Bermuda, bringing everybody together just like it did 20 years ago. There was no politics involved, no race involved, no religion involved and no teams could stack themselves because we, the committee, pick the teams.”Owen Simons, one of those who has played every year, is sad to see the tournament ending. “Either golf clubs or the Government of Bermuda should take it over,” he suggests.“It is time consuming and very difficult to present such a tournament. There is a lot of energy put into that tournament. When it first started I used to take out the signs and put them on the golf course.“The Ross (Blackie) Tournament is the number one tournament in Bermuda, as far as I’m concerned. The business environment also gets recognition from it.”Just as the Talbot Brothers knocked down racial barriers with their music decades ago, so too did the Ross (Blackie) Talbot Classic, bringing together people from all walks of life, according to those involved.Mr Talbot says: “My father never let those barriers inhibit him. He never passed down to me the racial injustice that he experienced, always told me ‘Clem, you are going to find a sector that is going to want you to fail. But also you are going to find a group that wants you to succeed’.”The racial past came up in the second year of the tournament, the first year as an official charity event, when the decision was made to switch the tournament from Castle Harbour to Riddell’s Bay and some participants insisted they would not play there.Mr Talbot says: “Riddell’s Bay, through Doug Selley, who worked with me at the bank, approached me and pleaded with me to consider holding the charity event at Riddell’s Bay.“He gave me a wonderful offer but I said ‘I’m not sure I can hold it there’. I said ‘Riddell’s Bay has too much of a negative past for a person of colour and Portuguese’. He said ‘Riddell’s Bay is not like it was and we want to work with you in your father’s tournament to help us remove that image’.“I spoke with my father about it and he agreed, like the Talbot Brothers, on breaking down barriers and they were offering us tremendous concessions and wanted us to help remove that tainted image that Riddell’s Bay had from the past. We lost a lot of the players we would have had, because a lot of people told me ‘if you put it at Castle Harbour I will play but I will not play at Riddell’s Bay’.”Mr Talbot, who retired last year after 45 years at HSBC Bank [the tournament’s lead sponsor], admits the tremendous work in organising a tournament of this magnitude was taking its toll on both himself and the management committee, including honorary deputy chairman Bill Thompson, deputy chairman Wayne Jackson, Delores Thompson, treasurer Derek Stapley and former senator Jeanne Atherden.“People have been saying I’m retired now and it should go on, ‘you’re selfish’, but running this event takes a tremendous amount of time, commitment and energy,’ explains Mr Talbot.“People have said ‘well delegate it’, but in this climate in the last two or three years people are more conscious of protecting their jobs and this is volunteer. The activities relating to this tournament is like a business. Look at the other activities that surround the golf tournament. We have to bargain for prizes and it’s very taxing and a lot of my old senior members very dedicated and committed individuals who helped me to develop the event to where it is have all indicated their retirement after the 20th tournament.”The tournament grew from an initial half-day tournament to a three-day one, though this year’s event will stretch over six days.It will benefit 13 charities and will start on April 7 with a hole-in-one tournament at Ocean View, a celebrity pro-am at Tucker’s Point on April 10 and a gala black tie banquet at the Fairmont Southampton on April 14. The Classic itself will be held on April 11, 12 and 13 at Riddell’s Bay. Grand raffle prizes exceed $125,000 and it is hoped to attract the likes of Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta Jones, Nick Faldo and Michael Bloomberg for the pro-am.Preparation for the last tournament has been long underway, with Mr Talbot hardly having much time to enjoy his retirement. He says his father would have been very proud of the tournament’s longevity and success.“He would have been extremely pleased. What’s being planned for the 20th tournament is massive: three days of golf, a hole-in-one sponsored by CableVision, a celebrity pro-am and a grand finale black-tie calypso theme banquet at Fairmont Southampton. And we’re looking at raising something that no other charity in Bermuda has ever raised .$400,000 in our final year and in this climate.”