Lady golfers scramble for Eileen Belcher Trophy
What you need to know:
- Kenya’s most popular inter-club women’s golf championship, the Eileen Belcher, which started in 1937 as an Inter-District, is one of the major events in the ladies golf calendar.
- A field of 108 from four zones namely Red, Yellow, Blue and Green will battle it out in a 54-hole foursomes match play-off scratch for all the divisions.
Lady golfers drawn from all over the country will once again converge on the par-72 VetLab Sports Club course this weekend for the 79th edition of the Eileen Belcher Trophy.
Kenya’s most popular inter-club women’s golf championship, the Eileen Belcher, which started in 1937 as an Inter-District, is one of the major events in the ladies golf calendar.
A field of 108 from four zones namely Red, Yellow, Blue and Green will battle it out in a 54-hole foursomes match play-off scratch for all the divisions.
The top players will be in the A divisions while others will be in the B and C divisions, where they will vie for the Sinclair Quaich and the Palmer Trophy respectively.
Each team comprises nine players or eight players plus one reserve and players participate in the “spirit of the competition” as teams.
The main event for the Eileen Belcher Trophy which was donated by the first chairman of the Kenya Ladies Golf Union, Eileen Belcher in 1937, will be those playing off handicap 13 and under and in B divisions will be those playing off 14 to 20 while C will have golfers playing off handicaps 21 to 35.
This year’s event has been re-organised with the teams mapped into zones that give a balance of Club Combined Strengths.
The Yellow team will be made up of players from Sigona, VetLab, Railways and Rift region, while Red will have players from Royal Nairobi, Golf Park, and Central Region clubs.
The Blue team, which won last year’s event, will have players from Muthaiga, Windsor and Coast Region which includes Machakos while the Green team will be fielding golfers from Karen, Limuru and Western region clubs.
The scoring will be two points for a match won, one for a halved match and zero for a lost match.
On paper, the Yellow and Green zones appear to be very strong with a number of single figure handicap golfers.
To lead the battle from the Yellow Zone will be home player Mary Karano playing off handicap eight, the ‘A’ division team captain while Limuru’s Mwongeli Nzioka playing off nine, will captain the ‘A’ division team from the Green Zone.
The first two rounds will be played Saturday while the third round is set for Sunday to be followed by the prize giving ceremony at 2pm.
