It is roughly six weeks now since the Safaricom Golf Tour kicked off. As the tour continues to take shape, last weekend Muthaiga Golf Club played host to the third leg after Nanyuki Sports Club and Limuru Golf and Country Club. In these short weeks, the vision of the tour is getting clearer as more kids show up for the golf clinics and show enthusiasm for the game.
To paint the picture from a parent’s and golf official’s point of view, I had an exciting one on one with Regina Gachora – a mother of 3 junior golfers, a trustee of the Junior Golf Foundation, and a director at Kenya Open. What really struck me was that with all these achievements, Regina only started playing golf 4 years ago when her youngest child went to kindergarten at 3 years of age. She could finally free up time to start golf lessons and be there to guide and encourage her children through the game. I felt that therein lies the message that golf is for all ages. That as much as it is good to start playing at an early age, it is also never too late.
To the famous question ‘what inspired you’, Regina says she was never really inspired. She only started playing when her daughter Audrey Gachora started and even then, she played socially as a hobby with no clear purpose. With her husband and daughter now golfers, she got more and more drawn into the game especially to encourage her young girl. Soon enough her son wanted to do what his older sister was doing so he too joined the club. Since her last born always tagged along to play with flowers and butterflies at the course, she grew up knowing golf and embraced it when she was older. That is how Regina’s family became a golfing family. Bottom line, her children made her golf better because she became more focused. She endevoured to understand golf better so that she could train and caddie her children better. From here she branched out into helping other children as well.
My children made me a better golfer.
Regina Gachora – Junior Golf Foundation
Regina’s golf journey has involved a lot of discovery. One thing that was bugging her from the get-go was that there were a lot of tournaments, but they were all for handicapped players. This, she felt, was locking out a lot of junior golfers with great potential.
At just nine years of age at that time for instance, her first born daughter was too young to be handicapped and this was the case with many other children. She looked at other countries and realized that they were teaching children serious golf from as young as five years, and little kids were completing nine holes of golf and winning awards. That is how she started engaging Junior Golf Foundation on what could be done for non handicapped players. She was not even at the golf foundation at that time.
Regina is now the Convener for Competitions and Golf Development at the Junior Golf Foundation, and this puts her right in the heart of the growth of junior golf in the country. She’s responsible for all tournaments and was one of the most instrumental people in bringing US Kids Golf to the country. She was keen on this because she needed a way for children to play golf in a fun environment at the very young ages before developing them to the next levels so that by say age 18, we have many juniors qualifying for the bigger leagues.
Junior Golf Foundation currently has 1,600 registered kids and there are many more who play but are not registered. This right here is why the Safaricom Golf Series is so important to the foundation because now they can travel to different parts of the country. They can access junior golfers in regions outside of Nairobi and Mombasa, give them a golf foundation card and support them with the resources that they need. It helps that the foundation has trained 45 coaches in the country, and they are in 32 golf courses in different counties. The Safaricom Golf Tour has given a national voice to the foundation and this is crucial for the growth of the game.
With this expansion, the foundation will be able to reach as many as seven thousand children. As is evident with the weekly golf clinics within the tour, we are seeing interest and curiosity in children who have never touched a golf club before. This encompasses the spirit of the tour and defines its success.