THE BLACK Heart Foundation have given their backing to the first Black British Golf Open which takes place on Saturday, September 11.

The historic event will will take place at The Shire in Barnet and on the day junior players, professional players, amateur players and seniors will all be coming out to play.

Now Ric Lewis, founder and chairman of the Black Heart Foundation has given his organisation’s full blessing to the tournament.

In a statement he said: “The Black Heart Foundation is proud to support the Inaugural Black British Golf Open 2021. As a foundation, our goal is to inspire aspiration and remove barriers to achievement for the young people.  We fully support Black British Golfers commitment to working with the various stakeholders of the game to remove any real or perceived barriers in key areas including participation and access to golf for the Black British community.

“There are numerous benefits to playing golf, and we feel that all young people should enjoy these benefits.”

The Black Heart Foundation’s goal is to inspire aspiration and remove barriers to achievement for the young people it helps and serves.

They aim to do this in two ways firstly by distributing grants to community initiatives and programmes that provide assistance, encouragement, tutelage, coaching and pastoral care to talented, ambitious and committed young people.

The charities that the Foundation supports in the US and UK provide a variety of educational environments for children and young people whose challenges arise for diverse reasons, such as family hardship, socio-economic disadvantage.

Secondly, the Foundation offers bursaries and scholarships through the Black Heart Scholars Programme directly to students to assist them in their educational pursuits.

The Black Heart Scholars Programme was created in 2013 and provides gap-funding for young people who would otherwise not be able to achieve their ambitions or potential through Further or Higher Education. To date, the Foundation has provided scholarships to over 370 scholars, 80% of whom are Black, Asian and other Ethnic Minority students and who have studied at over 125 academic institutions.

Event organiser and founder of Black British Golfers, Ray Nyabola, thanked those that will be participating at The Shire. He said: “First I wanted to say a big thank you to you for registering to play in our Inaugural Black British Golf Open. The demand for tickets far exceeded any estimates we had planned for. But this is another opportunity for us to learn and build on for future events.

“We look forward to working with our supporters and other organisations on initiatives we feel will grow the game in the community.

“It has been a journey and a learning process to get us to this point. While we are certainly proud of that, we are not going to rest on any laurels, rather we are going to push even more to get us to where we feel the community needs to be as it relates to the game of golf.

“To those that have been successful in securing tickets to play, please look out for a further email with the itinerary, tee times and groupings for the day.”