THE YEAR 2013 was hugely a success for Zimbabwean golf and in particular golf in Matabeleland.
It is hoped the year 2014 will follow up and build on the achievements made in the prior year.
The four main Zimbabwean men’s teams did well at the All-Africa golf championships held in Swaziland at the end of last year. They finished second out of the eleven countries that participated at the event. Zimbabwe gave the favourites and eventual winners South Africa a scare after day one as they held a four-shot lead over their neighbours.
The next tournament for the national team will be the Zone V1 championships that will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, in April. The team will be hoping to upset the hosts on their home ground.
Bulawayo successfully hosted the Zimbabwean Amateur tournament after more than a six-year absence. The tournament was won by Ben Follet Smith with an under par score. The Hwange Open and the Elephant Hills tournaments which are played in Hwange and Victoria Falls were in 2013 accorded the status of national tournaments.These two tournaments managed to attract a huge turnout of the top amateur golfers from all over the country.
The golf development programme in Matabeleland which is being driven by Paul Kersten continues to see big improvements. In 2013 the number of junior golfers from different backgrounds taking up the game increased with properly structured junior programmes now established in Hwange and Victoria Falls.
The highlight of the programme was a team of development golfers which had the opportunity to play in the national junior tournaments in Harare and Gweru. Two Bulawayo juniors namely Jack Allard and Justin Kersten managed to get impressive results in some of the national tournaments held during the year.
Internationally, United States-based Zimbabwean Scott Vincent is now the highest ranked African amateur according to the current World Amateur rankings. He is currently ranked number 19 in the world. Clive Nguru is also doing well on the rankings as he is the tenth best African amateur. The next best placed Zimbabwean is Sean Croker who is number 13 in the African rankings.
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Zimbabwe was represented at the last President’s Cup by Brendon De Jongé the last time Zimababwe was represented in the international team was in 2003 by Nick Price. Nick Price was also the 2013 captain of the international team.
One of the disappointments of the previous year was the number of tournaments that were postponed due to various reasons. The major reason was the inability of the traditional sponsors to continue with their sponsorship.
However, credit must be given to the golf clubs which managed to source alternative sponsors and ensured the tournaments were held albeit at later dates. It is hoped that as the economy improves the number of corporates sponsoring golf will increase.
