Muthaiga Club to honour decorated golfer Maina

Muthaiga Golf Club, regarded as the home of golf in Kenya, will this weekend honour one of its long-serving lady golfers.

Handicap five Florence Wachuka Maina, who is one of the best female golfers Kenya has ever produced and who has played as low as handicap one, is probably one of the highest archivers in golf besides the legendary Rose Naliaka.

A golfer for the past 30 years, Maina started her golfing career in New York where her husband Charles Maina was working as Kenya’s ambassador to the UN. She not only excelled in her club events but has also represented the country in major events like the All Africa Ladies Challenge and other international championships in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire and Namibia between 1990 and 2011.

Locally, Maina has been the ladies’ strokeplay champion at Royal Nairobi where she has also been a member for 27 years and Matchplay champion for more than 20 years. She has won the ladies title at Muthaiga for more than 10 times.

Because of some of her many achievements, she was inducted to the Kenya Ladies Golf Union (KLGU) Chairman’s (Eva Muchemi) (Hall Of Fame) in 2006. She has also represented Kenya in the Gilberson and Page Trophy for 17 years.

She is the only Kenyan lady golfer to have done that. Besides playing, Maina also served as the lady captain at Royal and Sigona and elected in the Kenya Ladies Golf Union (KLGU) as an executive council member.

Getting her handicap in 1983, Maina quickly rose to single figure in 1989 where she joined then leading lady golfers at that time Clem Ndungu, Leah Mburu, Jennifer Aoko, Winnie Marandu and Rose Naliaka among many others. She holds a hole in one record of 14 holes in one and was bestowed with the Order of The Golden Warrior (OGW) in 2012.