No clear leader on Day 1

Day One of the Dubai Holiday golf tournament on Saturday ended without a clear leader and the winner of the two-day event will be determined at the end of Day 2 on Sunday at the Kigali golf course in Nyarutarama.

Sunday, August 26, 2012
Louis Kamanzi looking in the direction of the ball after taking a short on the second hole yesterday. The Sunday Times / John Mbanda.

Day One of the Dubai Holiday golf tournament on Saturday ended without a clear leader and the winner of the two-day event will be determined at the end of Day 2 on Sunday at the Kigali golf course in Nyarutarama.Due to the monthly Umuganda (community work), the format of play on day one was reduced to ‘Short Gun’, where all the different groups teed off at the same time on different holes, and at the close of play, there was no clear leader in both the men and women’s categories going into the day two. A total of 70 players, including 10 women entered for the competition and were divided into four groups depending on the handicaps. The men were pooled into four three groups of handicaps 0-9, 10-18 and 19-27, while the ladies, from handicaps 0-36 were grouped together. Out of the 70 participants, four are from Uganda, another four from Mombasa and three are from Dubai, which is home of the tournament main sponsors.While explaining the complexity of determining the clear leader on day one, Kigali Golf Club captain Anthony Olwit said, "Because of the format of play on Day One (Short Gun), and the short time we had to compile all the results, which has to be done hole by hole, it was pretty difficult to put together all the total scores for the whole field.”It means, the winners in both the men and ladies’ categories will be determined the Day 2 results, yet Olwit could not hide from the real cause of the complication in knowing who scored what and on which hole in a short time.He said, "We’ve never had a tournament starting on the day of Umuganda, so this is something (Short Gun format of play) that we are not used to, and it has really disorganised us.”