NAIROBI, Kenya, September 22- The Tusker Malt Golf Carnival has now gone fully regional with Tanzania and Uganda added to the event last staged in 2009.
The carnival that tees off on Saturday at Nairobi’s Railway Golf Club will run through to April 2012 with 40 tournaments scheduled to be played across Kenya and Rwanda where the first edition was contested in addition to the two new entrant nations.
Speaking during the launch of the series on Thursday, Tusker Malt marketing manager, Kenneth Kangethe, also outlined the event had adopted the four-ball, better-ball format famously used at the prestigious Ryder Cup showdown between USA and Europe.
“We decided to bring this new twist to the carnival to make it more appealing to regional amateur golfers as well as encourage team bonding and we are encouraging participants to register in pairs,” he added.
The format of the revamp carnival will see all 40 rounds played as stand alone events with a planned regional grand finale towards the end of April 2012 where the individual tournaments will not count as qualifiers to the showstopper.
Kenya, with 16 rounds has the bulk of the carnival tournaments with Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania set to share the rest where 30 golf clubs will be involved.
“After 2012, we shall assess the progress made before deciding whether to make this an annual event or come back again after two years,” the brand manager expressed.
After Railways, the series will pan out to Machakos, Njoro Country, Thika Sports and Vet Lab Sports clubs with subsequent tournaments and details of the grand finale set to be released in due course.
Organisers are targeting a total of 10,000 golfers from the four participating nations up from the 4,500 who graced the 2009 edition.
During the launch, it was also announced each individual tournament would have its own prizes in various categories.
