By Shamaoma Musonda –

WITH the dust raised by the Zambia Sugar Open in Lusaka and Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) Zambia Open in Chingola settled, the top local golfers get back to business this weekend with a professional’s tournament at Lusaka Golf Club.
The Professional Golfers Association of Zambia (PGAZ) will be hosting an invitational tournament at which it expects about 20 top golfers, both professional, and a few selected leading amateurs to the competition.
PGAZ secretary Godfrey Mulenga said yesterday that his organisation would host a two-day championship that would test the local golfers’ strength after the two big tournaments.
He said that local players needed a lot of competitions regularly and that the more they get to play, the better the prospects of Zambian golf at the international level.
“We expect at least 13 local professional players to come for this tournament. This is the first after those two Zambia Opens and it should generate a lot of excitement from the golfers.
“Also, we shall have some amateurs at the tournament as well. We are inviting the top ones and we may have about five of them at this tournament. We are looking at the tough tested players,” Mulenga said.
The tournament will run on June 30 under the match play format and then switch to stroke play on the second and last day.
Zambian players did not have it good at the two Zambia Open tournaments as they failed to live up to the competition provided by the high performing South African players with less than a quarter of the local entrants making the cut.
The local players were condemned over the poor performance especially that, weeks earlier, they were posting better scores on the same golf courses.
One of the participating locals, Beza Daka, said yesterday that what was more important was to look to the future and how best Zambian professionals could improve their game.