Professionals chance to have bite at cherry

Akope is the country’s biggest hope in the Uganda Open professionals’ category teeing off today. PHOTO BY EDDIE CHICCO

What you need to know:

Golf. Ugandan rookies including two-time Amateur Open winner Peter Ssendawula, last year’s champion Willy Deus Kitata and former national captain Phillip Kasozi’s mettle will fully be tested

With Uganda Golf Union (UGU) pushing to have the national Open included on either the Sunshine or European Challenge Tour, the local pros will be looking to kill two birds with one stone at the par-72 Kitante course starting today.

Aside the hunger to showcase how far the game has evolved in Uganda, they will be equally pumped up to win, both fame and fortune, at the 10th edition of the Shs100m Tusker Malt Professionals Open.

With six founding members in 2006, the local professionals family has grown to 21 with the trio of two-time Amateur Open winner Peter Ssendawula, last year’s champion Willy Deus Kitata and former national captain Phillip Kasozi being the rookies. Although Ugandans Vincent ‘Araali’ Byamukama and Uganda Professional Golfers Association (UPGA) captain Deo Akope won the last two editions, the foreign legion has been dominant with six titles out of the nine editions thus far.

The stranglehold has been led by ageless Kenyan Dismas Indiza, who has won the money-spinning category four times in 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2012. “I am here for business and that business is winning,” said the 46-year-old Mumias-based golfer without mincing his words.

“But the locals also have a chance especially Akope and Anguyo (Dennis) because they know the course very well.” That said, the Ugandan pair and 2013 winner Byamukama, who will without doubt have a gallery when they tee off, say it will not be just about them but each and every Ugandan in the draw.

“We were still building a team when Kenyans dominated then. Now we have a good talented unit and a win for any Ugandan will be for all of us,” said Byamukama, whose best score is six-under-par 66 in 2011.
Akope chipped in: “We have to try, attack the course and hope for the best.”

Towering Anguyo, also last year’s second runner-up, will look to capitalise on his well-documented driving prowess.

Local knowledge
“Each of us has to use our personal strengths,” he said, “Personally, I will go for driving and will only keep away the driver on three holes. I have also been working on my putting because that’s where Opens are won and lost.”

But immensely talented left-hander Richard Ainley says lack of practice on the course will not matter, and if it does, it will be of little effect. “It is going to be about the mentality everyone takes to the course,” said the 36-year-old, who won the Open in 2009. “I haven’t practiced well because of a small back injury but I know I have to get off firing on Day One. The real challenge is not the fellow golfers but the course.”

But the presence of South Africans Jason Froneman and Michael Palmer, regulars on the Big Easy Tour, alongside Zambian journeyman Madalisto Muthiya could see the Open deliver a new winner outside the East African region.

FORMER WINNERS
2006: Deo Akope (UGA)
2007: Dismas Indiza (KEN)
2008: Dismas Indiza (KEN)
2009: Richard Ainley (KEN)
2010: Jean Baptiste Hakizimana (RWA)
2011: Dismas Indiza (KEN)
2012: Dismas Indiza (KEN)
2013: Vincent Byamukama (UGA)
2014: Deo Akope (UGA)