Royal outlast Muthaiga to reclaim Tannahill Shield

Hosts Royal Nairobi Golf Club’s team on Sunday beat their arch-rivals Muthaiga by three points to re-capture the Tannahill Shield at Royal Nairobi Golf Club course.

In a tense fourth and final round clash which pitted the three top teams - Royal, Muthaiga and Vet Lab and watched by a big crowd - the hosts beat Vet Lab 5-3 and halved with Muthaiga (4-4) for nine points to clinch the Shield they lost to Muthaiga last year, with a total of 45 points.

It was a close battle among the three teams though Royal must also thank Vet Lab for beating defending champions Muthaiga 5-3 which saw Muthaiga collecting seven points for a total of 42.

“Our plan of exchanging the pairings worked very well though I must admit, it was real a tough final round," said Royal coach Charan Thethy.

“Usually, Royal does very badly in the last round and we tried to avoid that by all means," added Thethy.

During their match with Vet Lab, the pair of Joseah Kogo and Jatinder which was put first, lost to Robinson Owiti and Edwin Mudanyi and the top pair of Dennis Saikwa and Kevin Juma which played as the second pair, beat Gurbux Singh and Amit Modi 2-1 while Jay Sandhu and his partner Quram Bhatti halved with Mike Kisia and Isaiah Otuke.

However, the last pair of Bo Ciera and Joshua Ichangi assured Royal’s two points after beating Jack Mwangi and Steve D’Souza 4-3.

In the Royal and Muthaiga match, Kogo and Thethy also lost by two holes to Muthaiga’s Neer and Bhavnish Chandaria while Saikwa and Juma lost 5-4 to John Gitonga and Mutahi Kibugu.

Royal’s first two points were delivered by Bo Ciera and Joshua Ichangi who beat Evans Vitisia and Rajesh Bhabra 5-4. And finally Jay Sandhu and Quram Bhatti brought the two important points after beating Anthony Irungu and youngster Zubair Khan 2-1 in a match which ended at the 18th hole.

Like last year, Vet Lab finished in third place with a total of 39 points, just one point better than last year. Limuru, who picked up eight points for the day, finished fourth on 38 points. The day’s biggest achievers were Western.

They beat Sigona and Karen 8-0 for a total of 16 points for a tournament aggregate of 33 points. And for the first time, Windsor Golf Hotel and Country Club survived relegation, meaning Windsor and Railways which was relegated in 2017, will for the first time meet in the Tannahill Shield. How sad though, Karen Country Club, one of the giants clubs in Nairobi will be relegated hence miss the 2019 event.

And Windsor’s Pancho Sharma, who made a return to the Tannahill for the first time after 33 years, said the way to develop a strong team, is to introduce more juniors into the team.

“One of the reasons why we did better this time round, was because of our three juniors Taimur Malik, Akshay Chandaria and Rushang Amin. The juniors were very solid and I think all the teams need to do that," said Sharma.

The final placings after the fourth round:

Royal Nairobi 12, 14, 10, 9 = 45

Muthaiga 9, 16, 10, 7 = 42
Vet Lab 10, 13, 8, 8 = 39
Limuru 11, 8, 8, 11 = 38
Mombasa 9, 2, 14, 10 = 35
Western 6, 3, 8, 16 = 33
Sigona 9, 8, 6, 5 = 28
Windsor 5, 3, 6, 3 = 17
Karen 1, 5, 2, 3 = 11