Ashley Muyela won the girls 11-12 years category during penultimate round of the NCBA Junior Golf Championship at Windsor Country and Golf Club.
Muyela’s win closes the gap on the leader to within 20 points .Muthoni Kio leads the category.
At Windsor Muyela won with a score of 79, followed by Ashley Gachora and Siqian Yu who were tied in second with a score of 83. Chloe Chiuri finished fourth followed by Hope Oduor in fifth and Muthoni Kioi in sixth.
The girls 13-14 years old category was won by Marya Nyambura after carding 84 points. Randy Turi finished second with a score of 88, with Amani Muriithi third with a score of 89. Following the results, Yolanda Yu, who finished sixth, leads the group with 135 points, followed by Amani Muriithi with 110 points and Amelia Sheikh with 75 points going into the final championship tournament at Muthaiga on November 3rd.
Andrew Gathere won the boys 13-14 years category with 74 points followed by Mwathi Gicheru with 75 points and Tsorav Soni with 77 points. Peter Gathogo and Amar Shah tied for fourth with 78 points. Series leader Justin Ngeera finished ninth. The group is also wide open as Ngeera leads with 106.25 points, followed by Yuvraj Rajput with 81.25 points and Amar Shah with 65.25 points.
“For the finale, we are closely looking at the boys 13-14 years which is a very strong group and also the the girls 11-12 years. It will be a great tournament with double points to be won at Muthaiga which is one of our toughest courses,” said Junior Golf Foundation president Regina Gachora.
The competition has been stiffened by the new entrants in this year’s series.
“We are getting a lot of new comers and a lot of younger players coming into the game. The pipeline we are looking at is of non-handicapped players; we are able to see where our players move from juniors, to amateur and then to professional ranks. We have a clear pathway of how to move them through the ranks based on what we have been seeing in the last three years,” added Gachora.
Some of the best players in the junior ranks have not played in the US Kids tournaments this season as they are training with the national junior team three to four times a week at Windsor.
“some of the Kenya junior team players played at the Lisle Shaw memorial tournament, an inter-school event (played a week ago at Windsor). They played at a very high level with the likes of Shaswat Harish playing 73 and the rest posting impressive results as well. Krish Shah has actually been chosen to play in the Kenya Golf Union All Africa championship team,” elaborated the president.
Gachora says at the end of the NCBA JGF US Kids season on the 3rd of November, there will be 5 world ranking tournaments between November and January, starting with the Nandi bears tournament on the 9th and 10th of November.
