Uganda lobbies to host DP World event after Rugumayo’s success 

ANTWERP – Played at Rinkven International Golf Club somewhere deep outside the beautiful Belgian city of Antwerp, the Soudal Open attracted some of the biggest golf names on the DP World Tour.

There was Cabrera Bello, Connor Syme, Pablo Larrazabal, Guido Migliozzi, Sebastian Garcia and Romain Langasque. I had the privilege to attend the four-day tournament at the invitation of Mr Bob Verbeeck, a 1984 Olympian, who is CEO of Golazo Events. It was his company that organized the tournament.

I flew to Antwerp along with Jackson Were, the president of Uganda Golf Union. We arrived at Rinkven on the day of the PRO-AM event and the first golfer we encountered was Thomas Pieters, the number-one-ranked Belgian.

“Your golfer did quite well in Kenya the other time,” Pieters noted. “He had quite a good story; is he here for the Soudal Open?” he asked.

What Pieters asked us about would soon become a recurrent topic of our stay in Belgium. We had to field as many questions as we could about Rugumayo; from golfers, fans, officials and organisers. The memory of his historic cut at Muthaiga is still fresh in the minds of DP Tour Golf; so, it is just as well that he was in Hamburg last week for his first flight to the European continent.

Later this month, he has invitations to France for the Blot Open de Bretagne and Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge scheduled June 20-23 and June 27-30 respectively.

Being the only two black people who attended the welcome cocktail which also doubled as the prize-giving ceremony for the Soudal Open PRO-AM competition, we easily stood out. We had a moment with Luke Donald, who also expressed his admiration for Rugumayo. Donald recounted how he had followed him at Muthaiga and was impressed with the chapter of history he had built for golf in Uganda.

Donald, a soft-spoken golf legend who was world no.1 in 2011, was the captain of Europe’s Ryder Cup team. Beaming after playing a hole-in-one on no.12, Donald revealed to us that he knew little about Uganda but would give strong consideration to visiting the country to see mountain gorillas sometime in the near-future, his schedule allowing.

With us on the cocktail table were the parents of Pieters, Mr Verbeeck, French golfer Langasque and his girlfriend who were all keen to know more about golf in Uganda and the type of courses the country had.

“How many courses are in Uganda,” the mother of Pieters asked? It was a question that was posed by Langasque, who represented France at the Tokyo Olympics and is battling to make the qualification for his country with the Olympics set to be held in Paris.

They were visibly blown away by the picturesque Lake Victoria Serena Golf Resort & Spa. They loved that the course is situated next to Lake Victoria and that it gave them a challenge different from what they are mostly accustomed to.

Langasque, Pieters and Denmark’s Niklas Norgaard would all finish on -17, just one shot behind tournament winner Nacho Elvira who won the Soudal Open. Golazo official Dimitri Stroobants gave us an extensive tour of the logistical detail that is routinely in place for DP World Tour events including, but not limited to, the television production OB vans, the TV camera towers, the course roping, media centre, buggy section, the caddies lounge, players lounge, the grandstand and the VVIP tent.

It was a learning experience that showed the thinking processes behind some of the greatest golf competitions in the world. There have been preliminary discussions between the government of Uganda and DP World on hosting a Tour event in Kampala.

The rapid rise of Rugumayo and government’s keenness in developing sports tourism to help grow the economy have emerged at the most opportune time.

Kenya’s Magical Kenya Open has set the standards in the region but the minister of state for Sports, Peter Ogwang, believes Uganda can raise the bar higher. “We know the event that Kenya hosts every year but our interest and desire is to put together a tournament that will be the benchmark of golf in this region,” he told The Observer.

There is a lot of red tape to negotiate, but if talks gather pace, golf in Uganda may never be the same again.