Golf With The Judge

It is one thing watching a game of golf on Supersport and seeing just how easy golfers like Ernie Els, Tiger Woods and our very own Deo Akope make it look. While I have been to Uganda Golf Club in Kololo, my ventures there, have not been to play golf, but rather, to sit at the bar with a cold Tusker and pretend I know everything there is to know about golf.

And so it was to Entebbe Golf Cub that I found myself invited to take part in the Kampala Sheraton hotel sponsored tournament. I was paired with Mrs. Camille Aliker and Jenifer Nsubuga amongst others.

Mrs. Aliker teed of first and her ball soared down the fairway. Jenifer went next and I brought up the rear. Disregarding all the advice my caddie had given me, I took a swing and when the club came down, there was contact and with that, I looked up and expected to see the ball shoot down the fairway. But there was no golf ball, neither was there a murmur of ‘shot’ coming from the small gathered crowd. Instead, there was laughter. When l looked down, the ball was still sitting on the pin, and the contact that I had made, was simply digging up a whole load of turf.

Nevertheless, I persisted and it was more than a relief when we got to the sixth tee. The Sheraton hotel staff, had thoughtfully set up a refreshment area including a well stocked bar. Thank God the game had come to an end I so blissfully thought to myself. Now we can get on with the quaffing. But there was Mrs. Aliker who went and spoilt everything by telling me we still had seven more holes to go through before we get to the final 18th hole.

So we trudged on. If recall, from tee off to the first green is a par five (as in it should take you five shots to sink the ball) but, it took me close to 12 shots to get there. So you can imagine, if by the first green I was almost 8 shots over par, try then to figure my score by the time we got to the 6th!

Somewhere down by the 10th, my ball disappeared behind some thicket and off I went to ‘look for it’ though I had no such intention of doing that. I was done with the game and at that time, the only thing on my mind was getting back to the club house, putting my feet up and languishing with a bottle of Tusker.

So I hid in the thicket and in order not to hold up the game and the other golfers who were following, Mrs. Aliker and the rest carried on without me. By the time they completed the course, the score in terms of beers, mean that they were 7 under par behind me. That day I retired from golf.

But Sheraton was not having any of it. The following year they persisted and invited me to yet another tournament, at Namulonge Golf Club in Gayaza near Ugachick.
This time I was paired up with David Cutting, the former managing director of Standard Chartered Bank. Cutting hailed from a sun baked island in the Caribbean where, the sand on the beach is whiter than sugar and scantily clad girls spend their days on sun loungers soaking up the sun. While I been in Cutting’s company on many occasions – at parties and other events, I had never seen his daughter and dare I say, when I saw her, she was a babe at that. Obviously golf was no longer on my mind. How could it be when there was a foxy lass milling about? Amongst the other golfers taking part was the High Court judge, Justice Kanyehamba.

Somewhere around the 10th, my ball went in the wrong direction and struck Kanyehamba on the leg. Scowling, he looked round for the culprit while muttering to himself in Rukiga. Again at the 12th, my ball went haywire. It bounced off a tree and hit him square on the forehead. This time Kanyehamba threw down his club in anger, had a word with his police bodyguard while looking round for the culprit. But it didn’t all end there. Moments later, I struck him again on the butt. This time, there was no reaction from him save for his growl.

At the end of the tournament, I chanced upon him to ask how his game had gone. “Not very good” he replied. “I think they (read government) are trying to kill me. Now they have followed me all the way to Gayaza and want to take me out on the golf course.” It didn’t make sense to all who were listening and especially to Cutting who was a foreigner.

Then it dawned on me. At the time Kanyehamba had fallen out with the government and the ruling NRM party over a number of issues – something to do with a court case that Kizza Besigye had won – if I recall. With those issues being played out daily in the media and now that he had been struck thrice by a golf ball, it was all too much for him to take in and he didn’t trust anybody.

Now for the great debate. Should I have told him that it was me who had struck him and that it was not intentional? Hell no, for the way he was growling and frothing in anger, if I had dared told him, there was a good chance he would have throttled me.

I let him be. I let him think there were sinister forces out to get him. With that I turned my attentions to Cutting’s daughter but sensing a negative look from her mother, I let her be. With that, I called my photographer, Albert Ayiga and off we fled leaving Kanyehamba nursing his wounds and expecting another golf ball to strike him at anytime and a relieved Mrs. Cutting breathing a sigh of relief that her daughter was safe.