DISCONTENT EMERGE OVER KGU’S CRITERIA IN PICKING NATIONAL TEAM FOR NEXT MONTH’S AFRICA CHAMPIONSHIPS
By KGG REPORTER
Selection of the Kenya amateur national golf team to feature at the Africa Championship to be hosted by Kenya next month is currently embroiled in controversy with players questioning the criteria being used by the Kenya Golf Union (KGU) to pick the team.
The players are accusing KGU of ignoring its own set criteria for selecting the national team using the Golfer of The Year (GOTY) ranking; and instead introducing a qualifying round for the first time ever, a move they say is against the union’s own rules. According to KGU’s stipulations, Goty points will count towards the selection of the national team.
Teams from a number of African countries will feature in the continental championship scheduled to be played at Limuru Country Club from October 12 to 16, 2015. Each country will be represented by a four-member team.
KGU on Wednesday announced a 54-hole qualifying round to be played at Limuru Country Club on Monday and Tuesday, September 21 and 22, 2015, with 36 holes being played on Monday and 18 on Tuesday.
But the players who are opposed to qualifying round are reading an ulterior motive by KGU’s move which they say is meant to create room for certain players to make the team, at the expense of those occupying top places in the Goty ranking.
Speaking to the press yesterday, the immediate former captain of the team, Robinson Owiti, said he would boycott the qualifying round, noting that: “This is beyond golf. It is politics.”
Owiti at the same time questioned KGU’s rationale of giving John Karichu who is currently leading in the Goty ranking an automatic place in the national team, while subjecting the rest of the players to fight for the remaining three slots in the qualifying round. “Let everybody go for the qualifying round. KGU must be fair to all the players.”
Owiti argues that the first four players in the Goty ranking are supposed to make the team. And according to the current Goty ranking the four should be: Karichu (Limuru CC), William Odera (Kericho), Alfred Nandwa (Njoro captain) and himself (Owiti). But Odera and Nandwa are under suspension by KGU on cheating claims, which leaves the next two players in the raking – Justus Madoya (Golf Park) and Kenneth Bolo (Royal Nairobi) to fill the suspended players’ slots.
In May this year, Owiti wrote to KGU complaining that Kenya’s position in golf in Africa was dropping and that players were being disillusioned by some of the happenings within the union. At the time, had raised the issue of Goty points system which he said was being “corrupted” to favour certain players to play in the national team. air max 95 air max 95