Editor’s note: The World Golf Championships-Barbados World Cup is being played this week at Sandy Lane Resort. While she is there covering the tournament, PGATOUR.com’s Helen Ross will be writing a daily blog.

By Helen Ross
PGATOUR.com Chief of Correspondents

ST. JAMES, Barbados – The World Golf Championships-Barbados World Cup isn’t the only sporting event with global implications coming to Barbados. The finals of the ICC Cricket World Cup will be played in Bridgetown in April of 2007. Barbados is in some pretty good company, too – only London, Calcutta, Melbourne, Lahore and Johannesburg have ever hosted the Cricket World Cup finals. Kensington Oval, the oldest cricket ground in the Caribbean, is currently undergoing a $67.5 million renovation project that is due to be complete in late January. We pass the site every day as we drive to Sandy Lane. When everything is finished there will be seating for 28,000 spectators – which is roughly one-tenth the population of the entire island.

I don’t pretend to understand cricket, which is the national sport of Barbados. The basic concept appears similar to baseball in that the game is contested in innings and players try to score runs. The ball is solid, made of cork and string, and covered with leather. It’s bowled, not pitched, though. After a bowler rolls six balls, it’s called an “over” and another player takes his turn on what we might call the mound. The bat is flat on one side and rounded on the other half, which provides the foundation with which to hit the ball. You’ve got wickets to contend with, as well. Rabbits, ferrets and golden ducks are other cricket terms that I can not begin to explain. Suffice it to say, though, that the Bajans are passionate about the sport.

Cricket matches can last anywhere from an afternoon to several days. The ICC World Cup will consist of 51 One-Day International Matches played over a 47-day period. Seven of those matches, as well as the final, will be contested in Barbados. Six matches in the Super 8 League will also be contested at Kensington Oval. The two gentlemen from New Zealand who were with us on our Adventure Safari worked for a travel company and were in Barbados to scout out hotels and other forms of entertainment for the World Cup. They seemed to like what they saw that day, for sure.

Cricket may be king, but the island of Barbados is home to four 18-hole golf courses – two of which can be found here at Sandy Lane – and three nine-hole layouts. Tom Fazio designed by the Country Club Course, which is hosting the Barbados World Cup, and the ultra-exclusive Green Monkey at Sandy Lane. An island of grass in the shape of a monkey is carved into one of the bunkers there, creating an unusual signature. The course at Royal Westmoreland is a Robert Trent Jones Jr. creation while Ron Kirby is the architect of the public course at Barbados Golf Club. So there is no shortage of world-class golf facilities available.

As the host nation of the World Cup, Barbados is being represented by Roger Beale Jr. and James Johnson. Some of the largest galleries this week are following the locals, who had a difficult time in Foursomes on Friday, shooting 5 over. “This event for Barbados is huge, huge for Barbados golf,” said Johnson, who added that he had always dreamed of playing on the PGA TOUR. After graduating from East Tennessee State, he gave up that dream, though, saying “I don’t feel like I’m good enough, basically, in a nutshell.”

So Johnson, who is putting his degree in advertising marketing to use in the family business here in Barbados, has been playing amateur golf. Beale, who now makes his home in Ottawa, attended the College of Boca Raton where Stephen Ames went to school, and he competed on the Canadian Tour last year. Johnson actually had to turn pro to play in the World Cup with Beale, since under the rules an amateur and a pro can’t play together. Johnson plans to donate the money he earns this week to the Barbados Golf Association, which helped him with travel expenses over the last year. He’s already checked with the R&A and expects to get his amateur status back almost immediately. “They were kind of in a little bit in shock. They had never heard of a situation where you’re earning money but you want to give it away,” Johnson said.

Click here for a chance to win a trip for two to Barbados.