Madoya now takes three-shot lead in Entebbe

Kenya’s Justus Madoya grabbed a three-shot lead going into Friday’s third round of the Entebbe Open at the par 71 Entebbe Golf Club course.

During Thursday’s second round, the Great Rift Valley Golf Resort golfer fired an impressive round of five under par 66, to jump to the top of the leaderboard with a two rounds total of six under par 136.

Enroute to his impressive round, Madoya made birdies on the first two holes of the front nine, followed them with three straight pars until at the par three-sixth hole where he holed in a birdie two, though he dropped the only shot of the day at the stroke index two par four ninth, to cross to the back nine on two under 33.

At the back nine, Madoya birdied the 14th, 15th and 17th, to close the day with a clear three shots lead from Uganda’s Herman Mutawe who carded two under par 69 for a total of three under par 139. He levelled the front nine where he only made one birdie at the sixth after dropping a shot earlier on at the second hole.

Mutawe made four birdies at the back nine though two back-to-back bogeys at the 16th and 17th denied him a chance of catching up with the Kenyan.

He tied for the second place with round one leader Robson Chinhoi who posted four over par 75 to dropping to the second spot.

Finishing alone in fourth place was John Wangai on one under par 141 after firing one under 70 in the second round. A total of 22 players made the second round six over par cut and will now be charging for the cash plus some ranking points towards the "Race to the Magical Kenya Open 2020".

Kenya entered 12 players against Uganda’s eight, with Zimbabwe and Senegal managing one player each into the last two rounds of the $10,000 (Sh1 million) event which is part of the Safari Tour golf series.

The top eight players in Order of Merit at the end of 11 events will earn an automatic entry to the European Tour-sanctioned Magical Kenya Open scheduled for March 12-15 next year at Karen Country Club’s par 72 course.