Mutebi comes of age to secure first ‘Major’

Entebbe.

When he broke through the ranks in 2013, Herman ‘Deco’ Mutebi was tipped by many to go a long way in the golf jungle.

And those who didn’t doubt his talent were vindicated when doors opened for him at the national team a year later.

But a tiny bag of mischievousness got Mutebi swayed away and sometimes luck hardly came by.

On Saturday, the youngster claimed his first ‘Major’ after beating a field of 180 players at the par-71 course to win the eighth edition of the Castle Lite Entebbe Open.

“I am so happy,” Mutebi would later say after picking his diadem and golf kit bag from Uganda Golf Union (UGU) President Johnson Omollo and Castle Lite brand manager Julian Ssentamu.

Before the showpiece, Mutebi was dropped at the final minute from the team that was heading to the just-concluded East Africa Golf Challenge.

“I was told while checking in at the airport that I could not travel because the tickets were not enough,” Mutebi recalled the painful scenario. “So when I got here, I wanted to erase those bad memories and make a statement.”
The scratch player gathered three bogeys on Holes par-3 No. 8, par-4 No.9 and had a triple-bogey on par- 4 Hole No.14. A birdie on par-5 Hole No.15 saw him returned 75 on Day One, some three strokes behind joint-leaders Micheal Tumusiime and Davis Kato.

Mutebi was out together with the pair on Day Two’s pressure group. But when he took bogeys on opening holes par-5 No.1 and par-3 No.2, he fell five strokes behind the pair.

“I just had to calm down. I settled my mind,” he said. Mutebi picked a birdie on par-4 Hole No.4, secured pars on par-4 Hole No.5, par-3 Hole No. 6 then a bogey on Hole No.7. By then, Tumusiime was leading him by four shots.
Mutebi charged further with birdies on holes No.8, 9, 14 and 16 to emerge victor. “I now hope to have confidence to go play the Rwanda Open.”

“I dedicate this victory to my sponsor Oscar Semawere and, my golf fathers Kiryowa Kiwanuka and Innocent Kihika.”

Kihika, former Entebbe Golf Club chairman, was emcee of the evening that had songster Sheebah send the golfers into seventh heaven with her hits Nkwatako, Wadawa and Farma.

Phillip Kasozi took the biggest chunk of the Shs10m pros kitty after piping Day One leader Denis Anguyo with a birdie on the final hole of the sudden-death play-off.