The Zambia Golf Union (ZGU) have confirmed the resuming of the golf fixtures this month in March, 2021 and that the sport will be played under the new normal in adherence with the public health regulations.
ZGU president Christopher Mulenga said as the sport resumes, there is need to be mindful of the pandemic as it is here to stay.
“We need to be more cautious we the golfers, we are not yet where we used to be two years ago in terms of safety, we are in a middle of a pandemic, it is a serious one and we have lost about five golfers through the pandemic and I can caution my fellow golfers that we train cautiously.
Speaking in an interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, mulenga is confident that the Unions two biggest tournament – the Zambia Open and the Zanaco Masters will be will be held this year.
“We are looking forward to the catch up from where we left and hopefully the tournaments take place successfully as the covid pandemic is here to stay,” he said.
Mulenga said there are some financial challenges the fact that the whole of last year the association did not have income earning tournaments and is carrying a deficit in terms of income, so some of the junior golf program that were supposed to be conducted will suffer and are still suffering.
He said the association had an annual program last year where the association needed to pick up in the development of junior golf in Zambia, but was negatively impacted, so there was need to pick up the pieces from where the program reached and try as much as possible to implement what we had planned earlier.
“Our traditional financing is that we sell the concept and our sponsors buy into it, we source partners, we rarely go with a begging bowl to ask for finances, we position ourselves in a manner that we partner with those that believe in what we do, they finance our activities,” he said.
He said going to the government could be an alternative but it’s the least on the agenda as the government is also impacted heavily by the same covid. The budgeted funds in terms of golf from the national treasury is limited, golf is not highly ranked [by the ministry of sport], so we have had to think outside the box and that is what the association has done for many years.
The association president said golf lovers must have looked for the activities coming back but cautiously realizing that the pandemic is still alive, Zambia has not yet procured the vaccine yet and as long as vaccine is not here yet, the virus will spread and there is need to be cautious.
Mulenga said the sport is popular among Zambians and that the unions in total has 25 golf clubs that are scattered around the country. ZGU intends to continue to popularized the sport through junior golf development.
“We have a very ambitious program that was set for January last year [2020] but did not take off because we got impacted by the pandemic. We had planned to recruit a good number of junior golfers, get them equipment, custom fit them so that they begin to improve their skills. The plan is that when they do get the skill, they begin to participate in international tournaments, and when that happens, it means in communities where they are coming from, news will be going around and people will be able to see the popularity of the sport,” he said.
When asked why golf has not leveraged the education system through school golf clubs, Mulenga said golf has not necessarily been introduced in schools, but most of the juniors come from schools. So the recruitment process in terms of golfing is from schools through the golf clubs who run junior programs.
He said the association is working to get as many young ones to play golf as possible, to get the interest out there through the junior directorates. We have an associations director for Junior golf, who is a very focused gentleman and is also working on a very ambitious program.
