As part of the $600 million in funding from the Albanese government for the 19th licence<\/a>, Marape promised his security pact would be tied to his neighbours in the Pacific, and not China.<\/p>\nNow, it also appears he fancies playing a bit of golf too.<\/p>\n
If you scrolled down far enough on the leaderboard for the Papua New Guinea Open being played in Port Moresby this week, the first event of the PGA Tour of Australasia\u2019s new season, there was a name which stood out: Hn James Marape (a). The \u201ca\u201d stood for amateur, in case you weren\u2019t sure.<\/p>\n
But all you needed to do was look at his scorecard to realise why. Marape signed for a \u2013 how do we put this nicely? \u2013 97. Twenty-five-over the card! He had a couple of pars, but there were also eight bogeys, seven doubles and a nasty triple. At least, and any average hacker will attest to this feat, he managed to scrape in under 100.<\/p>\n
Before you jump up and down about how a PM has shoehorned his way into a professional tournament, a couple of things to consider: Marape actually played in the tournament before in 2023 (missing the cut); he\u2019s using his profile to preach the opportunity his country is trying to give local players, including the weekend\u2019s PNG Women\u2019s Open; the field wasn\u2019t filled so every professional who entered the tournament was given a start; and there\u2019s already 20 local amateurs featuring in the event, so ample opportunity for some of the country\u2019s emerging talent.<\/p>\n
Then came the tournament invitation for Marape, who one-upped The Don by at least playing in an event for world rankings points.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to inform the country, this is our 50th (anniversary as a nation), and for the first time we\u2019ve gone past a hundred professional golfers in our country,\u201d Marape beamed after his round on Thursday, presumably not heading straight to the range to work on his swing.<\/p>\n
\u201c(There\u2019s) 120, including seven female professionals who are coming in, participating on Saturday and Sunday. It\u2019s a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cSport does sell our country\u2019s image. Sport does inform the world who we are. And here you have professional golfers coming from right across the world to come in to play in Port Moresby.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis morning, I was privileged that they gave me a run with last year\u2019s winner, William (Bruyeres), and they\u2019re all in the running for whoever comes out top on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said tournament director Graeme Scott: \u201cI believe there are discussions currently underway as to how the PGA of Australia can assist in the development of young players because it\u2019s very much our goal to have your aspiring professionals and young players coming to play on our Tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know in speaking to my own colleagues this morning, that was a crucial thing that we were trying to develop with Papua New Guinea, is that we can see a pathway for these players to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the record, Victorian Joel Mitchell was the solo first round leader with a five-under 67 \u2026 just a lazy 30 shots ahead of a Prime Minister, who at least let\u2019s everyone watch him counting his score.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Think Donald Trump would be the last politician to create a golfing headline this year? Yeah, James Marape…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[33224,2095,54504,2324,1724,64,63,54511,47955,54499,512,54513,2490,54498,9239,54508,2057,54510,755,54507,54512,54501,27296,54506,2041,2067,3583,677,27284,49652,6895,54500,54505,54503,54509,46732,5994,54502,85,2614,19121],"class_list":["post-68844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-adam-pengilly","tag-america","tag-ample-opportunity","tag-anthony-albanese","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-prime-minister","tag-australian-sports-fans","tag-bizarre-invitations","tag-china","tag-david-gray","tag-donald-trump","tag-donald-trumpon","tag-eastern-asia","tag-emerging-talent","tag-europe","tag-female-professionals","tag-golf","tag-graeme-scott","tag-harshest-golf-critics","tag-interesting-boring-man","tag-melanesia","tag-nasty-triple","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-northern-europe","tag-oceania","tag-papua-new-guinea","tag-port-moresby","tag-prime-minister","tag-prime-minister-james","tag-professional-golfers","tag-professional-golfing-tournaments","tag-professional-tournament","tag-right-direction","tag-scotland","tag-security-pact","tag-sports","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-young-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}