During a Venezuelan televised press conference held on August 15th, furrowed brow and all, Chávez expressed his philosophy on the Gentleman’s Game. “I respect all sports, but there are sports and then there are sports,” Chávez said. “Do you mean to tell me that this is a people’s sport?” He continued to jokingly paint a picture of obese men crowding a tiny golf cart, too lazy to walk, aimlessly whacking a ball into the air. The orange-uniformed audience of reporters laughed at Chávez’s summation. Once the chuckles died down, President Chávez unveiled his rationale as to why golf should not be played on Venezuelan soil. “Let’s leave this clear, golf is a bourgeois sport,” the President said. He followed that statement up with how the government could do more for the poor with the acquisition of that land. Regardless of his good intentions, many question Chávez’s true motivation for the upheaval of the game. “His use of the term “bourgeois” is typical of his ‘XXIst Century Socialism’ speech for his captive audience,” Chela Quintana says about the President’s rhetoric. “He has been trying for some years now to create the great divide between the ‘evil rich’ and the ‘poor who are their victims’.” Quintana, raised in Venezuela’s capital city of Caracas, is an eighttime Venezuelan amateur champion and former LPGA 34 December 2009
Tour professional. “Golf, as any other sport, deserves respect and assistance from government officials, starting with the President,” says Quintana referring to the lack of support from Chávez. She continues, “…this is all simply part of his Socialist talk against the poor in order to distract the attention of the people from the real problems that are destroying Venezuela: public hospitals closing down due to lack of supplies and facilities, inadequate and insufficient schools, no infrastructure, and blackouts due to a badly run electricity company [that was recently nationalized].” Maria “Maru” Martinez, a current LPGA Tour golfer from Maracaibo, Venezuela, sees the ripple effect as well. “President Chávez has conveniently chosen to eradicate golf in this country as a political strategy to upset the ‘bourgeoisie’, but the fact is he’s doing much more than that,” says Martinez. “He is depriving the entire country from all the financial and educational opportunities that the golf industry has to offer, whether it as a job generator, as a way to sustain the local economy and attract foreign investors into the country, as a way to increase tourism, or as a creator of opportunities for Venezuelan athletes overseas.” Martinez is a beneficiary of the educational opportunities abroad presented by
playing golf. She played at Auburn University where she helped her team clinch the 2005 SEC Championship. In 2008, she had three top-ten finishes on the Duramed Futures Tour. The paths travelled by Quintana and Martinez are storied, but may be a passing fad as courses in Venezuela close daily. The ongoing struggle for land to play golf in Venezuela is an arduous one. Both courses in the cities of Maracay and Caraballeda, each considered the country’s best, are two of the nine courses closed since 2006. Golf is a sport enjoyed under cloudless skies, but Chávez’s everchanging political agenda is predicting an unfavorable future for the game.
Garcia shares similarities in language with the people of Venezuela, he lives a different life than that of one of Venezuela’s most heralded athletes—Franci Betancourt.
“I don’t like to get into politics,” says PGA Tour star Sergio Garcia. “That [Chávez] is closing some courses back in his country is sad because it’s taking some of the enjoyment out of it for some people there, but I don’t think it’s going to make that much of a difference.”
“I don’t think it would be wise for me to speak about politics,” Betancourt mutters over the phone as the sound of country club patrons enjoying lunch fills the background. “With my son still down [in Venezuela], I’d rather not say anything.” Betancourt, a native Venezuelan who is now 72, is currently a golf instructor at The Woodlands Country Club in Houston. Over his 35 years of service to Venezuelan golf, Betancourt represented his country in three Golf World Cups as a player and coached the South American team in international competitions. One of his pupils is PGA Tour up-and-comer, and fellow Venezuelan, Jhonattan Vegas. Society versus sport is nothing new. Chávez’s crusade against the game mirrors the sentiments of Fidel Castro.
Garcia’s reluctance to fully engage in dialogues concerning politics is understandable. Like most of today’s athletes, the Spaniard has more than just his political opinion on the line. He is one of golf’s most recognizable names and his growing line of endorsements makes him a more than viable commodity on Madison Avenue. Though
The 1959 New Years Day ousting of then Cuban President Batista by Castro marked the end of capitalism in Cuba. Prior to the coup, Cuba was a palatial getaway for wealthy tourists with foreign investors banking on its success. Castro systematically revolutionized the once capitalist playground an independent nation replac-
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