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Brandon Moyo, Sports Reporter

ZIMBABWE Golf Association (ZGA) President Martin Chikwana feels that the sport in the country has a bright future having had a tournament that featured both men and women.

Speaking to Chronicle Sport during the recently concluded Dugmore and Fellowship tournament at Bulawayo Golf Club which was attended by Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews golf development manager for Africa, Eden Thompson, Chikwana said there is great optimism for the sport.

“It looks like a very bright future ahead of us, there is light at the end of the tunnel. One of the things that we have been having conversations about between ourselves and R and A has been the desire to ensure that golf is centrally managed,” said Chikwana.

At the moment, there are three bodies from Zimbabwe affiliated with R and A which are, ZGA (representing men), Zimbabwe Ladies Golf Association (ZLG, representing women) and Zimbabwe Professional Golfers Association. According to Chikwanha, the desire from R and A is to have one central body in which everything that comes through is coordinated in order to get traction from unity of purpose.

Having sat down as the three entities, Chikwana said it looks like everyone is interested in the idea of having one federation.
The Dugmore and Fellowship tournament was the first to feature both men and women in a single event. Having such a tournament came with advantages as it was registered with World Amateur Golf Rankings (WAGR), thus winners gained points used to rank against the rest of the world.

“This ability (gaining ranking points) which was before then only centred around men has now been opened to the ladies. They now have an ability to also get ranked in the WAGR system,” said Chikwana.

Zimbabwe produced seven players out of the 18 that took part at the high-performance programme camp which was held in South Africa and organised by the R and A in partnership with International Golf Federation, South Africa Professional Golfers Association, Olympic Solidarity and the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee.

“For us to have seven participants is a huge sign of the confidence that the R and A has in us and how we are trying to manage the game.

It’s an opportunity that we take seriously and appreciate and him (Eden Thompson) coming here and as a result coming to Dugmore was in a desire to ensure that not only are we theoretical about whatever the project be it activities that we are doing but to have an actual tournament in which they are the actual participants, the people that we intend to benefit from whatever programmes that we are effecting as ZGA,” said Chikwana.

The Dugmore and Fellowship tournament, which was the first of the year in the calendar of events was won by 18-year old defending champion Michael Wallace who edged last year’s runner up, Matthew Williams. Tracy Humbira won the inaugural women’s championship. – @brandon_malvin