NAIROBI, Kenya, October 30- Hardeep Sokhi defied the form book as he emerged the overall winner of the 10th and final leg of the NIC Bank golf series held at the Nairobi Royal club last weekend as home club colleague Lucy Awiti came a close second.
Motivated by his good knowledge of the Royal course the handicap 21 winner recovered from a disappointing start to sink a birdie on the second hole and was unstoppable all the way as he grabbed a total of 42 points.
Sokhi topped a potent field of over 200 golfers who took to the course in a bid to win the penultimate stage of the series that teed-off at Railway Club in April.
He showed some rustiness with a double bogey on the first hole but was in blistering form thereafter as he birdied his way back into the game.
The winner posted pars on the third, fifth and ninth holes with bogeys on four, six and eight and although he may have been disappointed with the double bogey on the par five – seventh, a total first nine return of 22 set him on the way to victory.
Sokhi’s consistency in the second nine paid off as he added three pars to his score which also saw the soft-spoken Oracle golfer make four bogeys for a total of 20 to take his tally to an unassailable 42 ahead of Awiti.
The runner-up who plays off handicap 18 returned six pars and nine bogeys to give the field a well deserved gender balance on the podium after finishing a stroke off the winner.
There were a total of 17 two clubs on the day, which is evidence of the superb condition of the course, where Michael Kinuthia beat his colleagues to emerge the staff winner with 33 as Chetan Solanki grabbed the men’s winner honours.
Limuru club’s Ken Njoroge won the guest prize on 36 while the highlight of the day was given a touché de class by Royal Captain Darshan Mistry’s ‘hole-in-one’ on the 133 yard, 13th hole.
“I think it was more of luck but that aside, am so delighted to make the first hole-in-one of my life,” enthused the cptain who had to momentarily step off his role as the master of ceremony for the evening to receive his prize.
“And for the record, it was a pitching wedge,” he quipped.
The series has visited nine other clubs namely Nyanza Club, Limuru Country Club and Mombasa Club.
Thika Sports Club, Sigona Golf Club, Eldoret Club, Kiambu Club and Nakuru Golf Clubs complete the line-up.
