Start them young and you will make many a great golfer

What you need to know:

  • Kenya will not have any hope of turning out good golfers unless we introduce golf in schools.
  • The golf course being built by the Government of Kenya at Lenana School is the best thing to have happened to the Kenyan golfing scene in a very long time.

One windy afternoon somewhere in the UK, Bhavnish Chandaria, a past captain and chairman of Muthaiga Golf Club, competed on equal footing with Sergio Garcia, the current champion of The Masters.

This was several years ago at The British Boys and Girls Open.

Bhavnish may not have gone on to turn professional but he had what was required to make it on tour. He is still a very good player and features for his club on several competitions when he is not busy working. What he and Sergio Garcia had in common was that they started playing golf as young boys. They loved the sport and they represented their respective countries at the biggest stage for any junior golfer.

There are many successful junior programmes in Europe and the USA that help talented children realise their dreams of becoming professional golfers. These programmes have developed many talented golfers that have gone on to dominate the world stage. Sadly, such programmes have been missing in our country.

Things are finally looking up in this area. There is a realisation that Kenya will not have any hope of turning out good golfers unless we introduce golf in schools.

The golf course being built by the Government of Kenya at Lenana School is the best thing to have happened to the Kenyan golfing scene in a very long time.

One golf course built for our children is worth a lot more than any championship golf course in the country. The Lenana golf course is a project after my own heart.

As you read this, there will be two junior golfers who will be doing duty for country, competing at the Victoria Cup in Entebbe.

Agil Is Haq and Mutahi Kibugu will be part of the Kenyan team that will be competing against the competitive Ugandan squad. They will be seeking to keep the trophy in Kenya after they performed very well in last year’s inaugural competition and won.

These two junior golfers are some of the best boys that we have in the country at the moment. Sadly, we don’t have many.

Golf clubs can do their part in encouraging junior golfers to come up the ranks and join the likes of Agil and Mutahi. One of the easiest ways of getting children to enjoy their round of golf is by shortening the course for them.

It is possible to set up teeing grounds for children of different age sets to help them enjoy the course in about the same way as adults. To work out how difficult a hole is, course rating teams look at the length and the difficulties that are present in the landing zone like trees, bunkers and proximity to the out of bounds. The most important factor however is the length of the course.

Let me demonstrate this by using numbers; Let’s use Muthaiga Golf club as an example. Hole number one is a par 4. This ideally means that the scratch golfer (defined as one who makes zero mistakes on the course) should be able to play the hole in four strokes. The actual length of the hole is 426 yards for men and 371 yards for ladies.

Let us assume that the tee shot of a scratch golfer is 200 yards for the men and 180 yards for the ladies. Then the second shot will be 180 yards for the man and 160 yards for the ladies. This will leave the man scratch golfer with 46 yards to the green while the lady scratch golfer will have 31.

PLAY A DRIVER

It is desirable that the effort and club that is used by the male golfer will be proportionate to that used by the lady golfer. If the man played a driver, then a five iron and a sand wedge to get to the green, the lady should be able to play the same clubs.

When setting up tees for junior golfers, the same logic should apply. Muthaiga Golf Club would then have tees for juniors that will allow a junior golfer to play a driver, then a five iron and a sand wedge to get to the green.

Since children of different ages will have different abilities, it will require the club having different tees for the different age groups.

There should be one for the 6-8 year olds, another for the 9-12 years olds and so on. A child who can strike the ball well, should be able to play par on each and every hole. The most important factor will be the distance.

I look forward to seeing the completion of the golf course at Lenana School. This is the best support that the Kenyan government has given to golf in Kenya.

I truly hope to see some junior golfers coming out of this school and taking the place of Mutahi and Agil in future. Junior golf is our only chance of getting golfing champions from Kenya.