Larry Ngala
24 December 2009
Nairobi — With majority of the country's amateur golfers taking a short break to celebrate Christmas and the New Year festivities, so will the East African Breweries sponsored Tusker Malt Golf Carnival.
The recently-launched series takes a three-week break after three exciting qualification rounds held in Njoro, Thika and Windsor which brought together golfers from 10 different golf clubs who have had a taste of the Carnival and experienced the new qualification format that emphasises team-work, comradeship and a good dose of fun.
The Tusker Malt Golf Carnival became the first golf series in the East African region to introduce qualification into the regional and grand finales for teams. Further, the new series introduced six regional finales in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Central Kenya, Rift Valley and Eastern.
Qualifiers from the various qualification rounds will get to participate in the regional finales from where golfers will win slots to the national finals set for May 21, 2010 to held at the home of golf Muthaiga Golf Club.
The Rift Valley circuit has two qualification rounds; the first, held at the Njoro Golf Club which included golfers from Nakuru, Gilgil, Naivasha, Great Rift Valley and hosts Njoro. Twenty teams of four golfers each qualified to the Rift Valley Grand Finale to be held at the Nakuru Golf Club on March 6, while the second qualifier will have participants from Eldoret, Nandi Bears and Kitale who will converge at the Eldoret Golf Club course on February 13, to battle it out for the 20 team slots into the regional finale at Nakuru.
The Central Kenya circuit will involve three qualification rounds. The Thika leg that was held on Jamhuri day where players from Ruiru and Makuyu joined those at Thika.
Regional finale
A total of 15 teams qualified to the regional finale to be held at the same venue (Thika) on April 17. The next event in Central Kenya will be at Kiambu Golf Club on January 9, where another group of 15 teams will qualify for the regional finale to be joined by those from Nanyuki and Nyeri whose qualifying round is set for February 27 at Nanyuki Sports Club.
Nairobi, which has the bulk of Kenyan golfing fraternity will contribute the highest number of qualifiers into the grand finale. A total of eight qualification rounds will be played at Sigona, Limuru, Muthaiga, Vet Lab, Royal, Karen and the Railways Golf Clubs in addition to the Windsor round held last weekend.
Each of the eight qualification rounds in Nairobi will yield five teams each into the tegional final on May 15, This region is expected to produce 21 teams. Away in Nyanza, the regional final is scheduled for April 24 and will include golfers from Mumias, Kakamega, Kericho, Kisii and hosts Nyanza.
From there, three teams will qualify to the grand finale while in Eastern where there is only one golf club- Machakos, players will battle it out at Machakos Golf Club on May 8, to select three teams or 12 players for the national finals. Down at the Coast only four teams will qualify for the finals with two teams each coming from Uganda and Rwanda.
In all, the Tusker Malt Golf Carnival will visit 20 venues in Kenya, six in Uganda and one in Rwanda with over 5,000 golfers from 39 different golf clubs expected to participate in the Carnival while another 15,000 club members will participate in the Tusker Malt Golf Carnival Raffle that will run alongside the golf championship. The winning team of four golfers will win a golf trip to South Africa in June 2010.