Woeful Kenya drop to ninth in Zimbabwe

IN VICTORIA FALLS, ZIMBABWE

Kenya dropped to ninth position after posting a poor 232 in the second round of this year’s FBC Bank Africa Amateur Golf Team Championship at the par 72 Elephant Hills Golf course here on Wednesday.

Defending champions South Africa remained at the top with a huge margin of 19 shots.

Whilst team captain Alfred Nandwa fired one over par 73, to drop to fifth in the individual category, his teammate John Karichu fired five over par 77 to improve by only two shots as Edwin Mudanyi, who lost a ball on the first and fifth holes, produced a poor 82 with youngster Kibugu Mutahi posting 83, a three shots improvement from his first round’s 86.

This saw the team drop to ninth position with a team aggregate of 456 after two rounds, a shot behind Zambia and two shots from seventh-placed Tunisia.

“I hit a tree off the first hole and at the fifth hole due to the chance of tee box change. From there, my game got worse, but tomorrow is another day,” said Mudanyi, adding Kenya still had a chance of improving to a better position.

TITLE HOPES OVER

The overall title appears out of reach for the Kenyans with South Africa now 36 shots away from the East Africans.

Meanwhile, spearheading the campaign for the South Africans was Malcom Mitchell, who shot four under par 68 to extend his lead in the individual category to five shots with a total of nine under par with Re-Union’s Alexandre Lasalarie in second place on four under par total of firing one under 71.

Team-wise, Clayton Mansfield shot two under par 70 while Matrt Saulez carded 71 for South Africa’s second round 209 and a two-day aggregate of 420.

Egypt shot 220 to remain in second place with Issa Abu El Ela leading the attack on level par 72. Other contributors were Maged Abd El Tawab with 73 while for the third slot, they had to choose scores from either Fares Abd El Aziz or Abdel Monem Shafei after each carded three over par 75.

Hosts Zimbabwe put up a strong fight to move to third place on 440 gross. Their top player David Amm shot a brilliant five under par 67 with both Tonderayi Masunga and Rasheed Mohamed firing 74 each.

Thursday’s third round is set for 7am with Mutahi to strike the ball first in the team of Zambia’s Gabriel Chibale and Tunisia’s Rabeh Bedoui. The last team to tee off will be Zimbabwe’s David Amm, Issa Abu El Ela and South Africa’s Malcom Mitchell in the seeded draw at 8.55am.

THE LEADERBOARD
South Africa 211, 209= 420

Egypt 219, 220= 439

Zimbabwe 225, 215= 440

Reunion 222, 221= 443

Swaziland 226, 220= 446

Mauritius 230, 223= 453

Tunisia 229, 225= 454

Zambia 226, 229=455

Kenya, 224, 232= 456

Uganda 236, 225= 461