Plans to bring the inaugural World Amateur Strokeplay Championships to the Island this November have been temporarily scrapped, it was announced yesterday.

Bermuda Golf Association president Bob Legere revealed in January that he was planning to bring 40 of the world’s best male and female amateur players — many of who will eventually go on to become household names when they join the professional ranks — to Bermuda to vie for the title of world amateur champion.

The announcement was significant because while a World Amateur Team Championships already exists, there has never been an individual strokeplay event on offer to the leading amateur players, with the prestigious British and US Amateur championships both being matchplay competitions.

With rumours circulating that Port Royal would be closing for nine months starting at the end of last year, the BGA originally planned to run the event on three different courses — the Mid-Ocean Club, Tucker’s Point and Belmont Hills.

The project was first conceived and brought to the attention of Government by Legere as far back as the middle of 2006.

But when Premier Ewart Brown announced a few months later that the Grand Slam of Golf would be hosted by the Mid-Ocean in the same month, the World Amateur Championships were essentially blown out of the water.

While stressing he was an enthusiastic supporter of the Grand Slam, Legere admitted to The Royal Gazette back in January he was worried about his event’s proximity to it and the fact that the BGA and the Department of Tourism could end up competing against each other in the hunt for corporate sponsorship.

It now appears as if his anxiety was fully justified.

Yesterday Legere said his idea had received the “enthusiastic endorsement” of the 114 golf associations that make up the International Golf Federation (IGF).

Yet despite the BGA’s best efforts, he said it was simply not going to be logistically possible to host “two major golf events in such a small place at more or less the same time.”

And in an a further development, Legere revealed that members of the Dubai Golf Association were on the Island last week and have expressed an interest in hosting the event themselves — though Legere made it clear he would much prefer it to take place in Bermuda.

“The people from Dubai definitely want it, though at this stage I would say there is less than a 50 percent chance,” he said.

“We’ve have done our very best to work around the Grand Slam, but the problem for us has been the limited access we would have been given to the Mid-Ocean Club in the weeks before the Grand Slam as they prepared the course for that event.

“At one stage I thought the World Amateur and the Grand Slam could co-exist, though as time has gone on I’ve realised that we’re fighting a losing battle.

“To have them both in November would have been like two big buses colliding and I cannot take on the Government.

“Our access to the kind of corporate support and hospitality that we require was also being severely restricted because of the Grand Slam and it got to the point where we knew it wasn’t going to be possible to host our event at that time (November) in a small place like Bermuda.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bitter about anything or towards anyone. In fact I’m a big supporter of the Grand Slam in general and am hoping like everyone else that either a Tiger Woods or a Phil Mickelson or an Ernie Els will win one of the year’s two remaining majors — because without a high-profile name, it's going to be a much quieter tournament.”While he has trademarked the World Amateur Strokeplay Championships logo in the US and UK, Legere is well aware that there’s now a slight possibility that another ambitious national golf association could steal plan and host a similar event themselves — though he doesn’t think that’s very likely at this stage.

“We did go to the trouble of trademarking the logo in a couple of different jurisdictions, but the laws are complicated and very different in every country so there is a chance that somebody else could steal it I suppose — in which case I might have a legal battle on my hands,” he said.

“But the IGF is aware of what has happened in Bermuda, they’re aware that the idea for a World Amateur Strokeplay Championships originated with me and that BGA has been working very hard on it.

“Many of the other national associations who are all members of the IGF are aware of that as well and it is unlikely they would accept such a move. So I’m comfortable things won’t head in that direction.

“But I am convinced this event will eventually be a huge success and a fantastic boost to both the Island’s golf and tourism product. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens with the Grand Slam and see if we can come up with a scheduling plan next year which works for all concerned.”