… as golfers descend on Rossmund
Carlos Kambaekwa
Windhoek
If you thought you were too long in the tooth to engage in active sporting activities, don’t despair – people from all walks of life are to converge at Namibia’s globally acclaimed holiday hub, Swakopmund, this weekend.
The second edition of the annual ICT Minister’s Golf Day promises to have all the ingredients of a sporting spectacle, while providing a family and team gathering par excellence.
Action gets underway in earnest tomorrow when golfers tee off in teams at the much-adored, but challenging and well-grassed Rossmund golf course near Swakopmund.
With various lucrative prizes at stake, fireworks are be expected to fly as established golfers combine in groups of teams with beginners, or those who have never swung a golf club before in their existence.
According to organisers, the two-day gathering has attracted a large field of golfers from as far as Botswana, Zambia and South Africa, ready to pit their skills against the locals.
Starting off as leisure pastime for well-do-to gentlemen in blue suits to while away the hours back in the day, the game of golf was first played in Scotland in the 15th century and has grown in leaps and bounds ever since.
Locally, the temptation of swinging golf clubs has captured the imagination of dozens of business personalities, to the extent that not even the tough economic meltdown would keep casual golfers away from the greens.
In the past, golf was associated with wealth and was seen as a game exclusively tailored for those in the upper echelons of the elite class and affluent inhabitants of the country.
However, this misplaced perception has been thrown out of the window and proved to the contrary, with many golfers from previously disadvantaged communities now showing a keen interest in swinging the clubs.
Gone are the days when the white man would swing the sticks and the black man would go and fetch or retrieve the tiny ball from the rough. Gone are the days when the white man would enjoy the exclusive privilege of playing golf, while the black man carried his bag.
Former caddies are now invading what was previously the sacred domain of a selected few, as they appear to have silently learned and copied the finer tricks of swinging clubs from their paymasters and are now confronting regular golfers head-on at their own game.