After months of travel, golf, outreach and golf clinics for juniors, the inaugural edition of the Safaricom Golf Tour came to an end with a colourful grand finale at Vipingo Golf Club. This marked the end of a great journey that started towards the end of January at Golf Park and went on to traverse 14 courses across the country, namely Nanyuki, Limuru, Muthaiga, Nyanza, Machakos, Eldoret, Karen, Nyali, Kericho, Kitale, Nakuru, Kenya Airforce, Vetlab and Royal Nairobi Golf Club. The golf tour drew more than 9,000 participants in various tournaments, junior clinics and outreach programmes.
It has been a good run and a great learning experience for me and my colleagues who have worked on creating content for the tour, with some learning the game from scratch and carrying on with it as a sport even after the tour.
Watching this growth demonstrated the very essence of the golf tour which is to demystify golf, drop the elite tag that tends to be stuck to it, and bring in new players. This was further demonstrated by the golf outreach and clinics, in which Safaricom took golf to absolute newbies in schools and public squares to tap young talent there. This has been a great way to plant the seed in players who would otherwise never have thought of golf as their game, and more importantly, it injects new blood and ensures the future longevity of the game.
The tour has also shown that golf is for anyone by having members of the deaf community at the Nakuru leg where we met Jecinta Njeri, a sports enthusiast who was elated to add golf to her list. Along the same lines, we documented the inclusivity of golf which has attracted people of all ages and abilities throughout the tour.
Marion Githinji from Nanyuki Golf Club was crowned the overall winner of the inaugural Safaricom Golf Tour held at the Vipingo Ridge in Kilifi County. Congratulations are in order for the lady who closed the tour with a score of 47 Stableford points courtesy of 23 points in the front nine and 24 points in. the back nine.
This tour has done well especially for juniors who are our future pro players and officials. The partnership between Safaricom and Junior Golf Foundation has played a great role in discovering and nurturing new talents across the country. Through the spirit of Tuinuane, the series has been able to discover, nurture, lift and expose over 4,000 juniors through the golf tournaments, clinics and outreach programmes.
As part of growing the sport among junior players in the country, Safaricom has partnered with the Junior Golf Foundation to tap and nurture young talent. The juniors can register with the Junior Golf Foundation (JGF) for Ksh1,000/- which grants them access to play at any golf club in the country
The junior tournament winners will have a chance to attend a 3-day elite camp later in the year. Junior Golf Foundation will conduct the Training in partnership with the US Kids Golf Foundation.