World Amateur Golf Championship in his native Ivory Coast. Today, he is to discover whether his fellow delegates here share the same vision.

Keita is the 50-year-old president of the Ivory Coast Golf Federation.

Delegates to today's meeting of the World Amateur Golf Council (WAGC) will decide whether to accept the Ivorian bid to host the 1994 tournament, or whether to award the tournament to the French, who want to stage the tournament in Versailles, just outside Paris.

Should Keita's bid be successful, it would be the first time an African country has been awarded the championship. The tournament alternates among three world zones -- the Americas, Europe/Africa and Asia/Oceania.

The Ivory Coast is the definite outsider this week, but Keita has proven to be a formidable campaigner. During the women's tournament, which concluded on Saturday, again and again Keita could be seen buttonholing the delegate from this or that country in order to extol the virtues of the Ivory Coast.

He has been freely handing out a 24-page, full colour brochure to promote the Ivoire Golf Club and the adjoining 750-room Inter-Continental Hotel in the Ivorian capital of Abidjan, which Keita says would host the 1994 tournament.

And he also presided over a video presentation on the course, and invited delegates and Press members to attend.

Keita was first introduced to the game when he worked in Quebec City some 30 years ago. "I worked in a very tall building, and I watched golf through the window,'' he said. "I asked a co-worker what they were doing and he said `playing golf'. I thought it was a very silly game.'' But Keita eventually took a liking to golf, and when he returned home to the Ivory Coast shortly afterwards, found the country had its first nine-hole course. It now has two 18-hole courses, two nine-hole layouts -- and three more courses in the planning stages.

Keita arranged for the Ivory Coast to join the WAGC in 1980 -- and, encouraged by veteran South African pro Gary Player, entered an Ivorian team in the championship for the first time in Caracas six years later.

"Now, I think we are ready to host the tournament,'' he said. "The tournament has been held for 34 years now, and it has never been held in an African country. We are in the same zone as Europe, and they have had it six times. So logically, we should have it next time.'' Still, Keita knows he and the 560 registered players in the country are fighting an uphill battle. There are those who remain unconvinced that the Ivory Coast has the organisational structure and the facilities needed to host the tournament.

That is why Keita explains how he used to organise the Ivory Coast Open, a stop on the Safari Tour in Africa, which attracted the likes of Player, Ian Woosnam, Bernard Langer, Curtis Strange and other top pros.

"It is not easy to handle pros, but they were happy,'' said Keita, who is employed as a civil servant and works his small pineapple farm when he is not the Ivory Coast's golf ambassador. "That's what I want to tell the world amateur players this week -- that we can hold a tournament like this. I'm here to make the contacts, to convince people we can do it because they don't believe we have golf courses in my country.

"But Ivoire is a beautiful course -- it's among the most beautiful I've seen, and I've travelled a lot. Now, if we have the event, we must prepare the course. But we can handle it.'' Bermudian delegate Brendan Ingham has heard Keita's pitch. "It'll be a matter of cost for us,'' he said. "I'll go to the meeting and hear what they have to say, and then I'll do the best thing for Bermuda.'' British Airways last night quoted a price of $858.00 for flights from Bermuda to London, and then to Paris. The fare for traveling from Bermuda to London, and then to Abidjan is $2,200.00.

Bermuda's squad played a practice round at Capilano GC, one of Canada's top-rated courses, yesterday. On Sunday, Jack Wahl, Glen Simmons and Arthur Jones got their first look at Marine Drive, which is splitting the host course duties this week with Capilano.

Robert Vallis will join the team in time for rounds at Marine Drive today, and Capilano tomorrow.

Ingham said the men could understand the trouble some of the women golfers had with the length of Marine Drive, which played at 6,120 yards and par 72 for the women and will play at 6,364 and par 70 for men.

"It's a bit long for the yardage,'' he said. "It may be just over 6,000 yards, but it feels more like 7,000 because there's no carry. But the good thing is the guys seem to like the course, and that's important if you're going to play it twice.'' The tournament begins on Thursday.

KING OF ROTHERHAM -- Shawn Goater celebrates his goal against English Premier League side Everton in last Wednesday's 1-0 League Cup second-round first-leg match. More pictures of the 21-year-old Bermudian's most famous night as a professional are on Page 20, courtesy of the Rotherham Advertiser .

GLEN SIMMONS -- At first World Amateur.