Standards of golf plummet to new lows

Kenya's junior team after the final round of the Africa Junior Golf Championship at the Royal Harare Golf Club in Harare, Zimbabwe on March 31, 2017. PHOTO | LARRY NGALA |

What you need to know:

  • It has now become almost impossible for Kenya to beat countries such as Uganda that used to struggle to beat Kenyan golfers until recently.
  • For Kenya to produce high level players for international amateur and professional events, a serious programme must be put in place.
  • It will take a long time for a Kenyan to win such events as the Kenya Open without an organized plan of action.

Despite all the bodies that were established under the Kenya Golf Union (KGU) some years ago to nurture and develop talent in the game of golf, Kenya as a country is far from achieving any tangible results.

The two organisations, the Golf Talent Foundation (GTF) and Junior Golf Foundation (JGF) both operating within the KGU do not seem to have found the correct formula and if they have then they are taking too long to fulfil their mandate.

As it is now, Kenya’s golf standards are moving from bad to worse particularly if the just concluded Africa Junior Golf Championship in Harare Zimbabwe and other recent events are anything to go by.

It has now become almost impossible for Kenya to beat countries such as Uganda that used to struggle to beat Kenyan golfers until recently.

For Kenya to produce high level players for international amateur and professional events, a serious programme must be put in place.

It will take a long time for a Kenyan to win such events as the Kenya Open without an organized plan of action.

Certainly the talent is there in Kenya but either the will is not there or those charged with the responsibilities of developing the game are not committed enough.

What do the Ugandans, Zimbabweans, or South Africans do that Kenyans are not able to do? Is Kenya lacking the resources to carry out an intensive junior programmes?

The answer is definitely no. Kenya national golf coach Brian Njoroge says mental maturity in most of the Kenyan junior golfers is lacking.

“South African juniors behave very professionally and are committed in what they are doing, in any case, golf in South Africa is a priority then education while in Kenya it is the other way round."

“It does not matter the resources we may have, we must pick juniors who show commitment and they understand what is required of them,’’ adds Njoroge, who accompanied the junior team to Zimbabwe.

He says it is not easy to coach juniors who are scattered in different parts of the country.

Njoroge adds that discipline is important for the juniors to make any progress.

"If you are not discipline in nine months of the year, it will not be possible to be discipline in a month or few days while preparing for an event."

DISCIPLINE IS KEY

On the performance of Kenyan professionals in international events such as the Barclays Kenya Open, Njoroge says most of the Kenyan professionals who come from the caddie ranks are just as good and the only thing they are lacking is the necessary exposure.

Ugandan coach Amos Kamya agrees with Njoroge on discipline. He says a player who lacks discipline has no place in his team. “Discipline is one of the things we consider as we search and nurture talent. We usually pick a pool of about 70 players in our junior order of merit where we then organise national trials to trim down the list to 20."

He says Uganda has strong inter-club events particularly between Entebbe and Uganda Golf Club which he says with the help of the clubs and corporate organisations, has produced lots talented boys over the past five years.

“As a coach, one of the things that I always insist on is total commitment and the boys always go out of their way to perform because they know they are representing the whole country."

In South Africa, all the 14 unions carry out their own Order of Merit where the best in those unions come to participate in the national junior order of merit which has a total of 14 events mostly played during school holidays.

“We have a pool of about 112 juniors we work with, but one must prove his or her worth from the provincial unions before he or she comes to the national Order of Merit where we have strong training including mentorship, putting values to the juniors as they must understand the role that is expected of them," says Eden Thompson the South African coach.

Surprisingly though, Zimbabwe has been producing scores of juniors with very little support from the corporate organisations. “We have very good programmes every school holiday. We do three coaching clinics with 36 hole events where these juniors play 18 holes every day. Though we have golf clubs scattered everywhere in Zimbabwe, the strongest regions are Harare and Bulawayo," says veteran coach Roger Baylis.

"We are lucky here professionals offer free service to junior golf programmes because sometimes it is not easy to get financial support from elsewhere. Our success story I believe is as a result of how committed we are." 

In Kenya, most of the current crop of juniors and those who have been there over the past decade is a result of either individual clubs or parents who have spent lots of money on their children because they are interested to see their children advance in the game.

JGF president Gitonga Kabera however says plans are under way to transform junior golf programme in the country. “We are evaluating every  programme that is in place to make sure that we are producing talent and that includes coaching programmes."