About two minutes drive from Kiambu Town (about 20km east of Nairobi), a seemingly empty but lush green field is visible to a keen eye on the right side of the road approaching the Ndumberi shopping centre.

The field with two goal posts at the edge, the other having gone missing is the Ndumberi Golf Club's course. Unlike other golf clubs and courses in Kenya, this is not associated with affluence and exclusivity.

A few old men and others in their late forties are comfortable getting to the course with jeans trousers and long sleeved office-type shirts. The players do not have caddies as each of them carries their own clubs. The clubs are also hand held as a golf bag here appears to be unnecessary bother.

On a normal day, a heard of sheep grazes on the field, and on other days, it is the cows. Where there was meant to be a clubhouse is an office formerly occupied by the Chief but has since been taken over by the District Officer. The office compound is used as a parking lot for "Nissan" Matatus and private vehicles.

Occasionally schools from Ndumberi area stage their sports events here, as does the Kiambu Agriculture Show. If all these activities were to be replicated in some of the established gold clubs, the crime is only comparable to treason.

Ndumberi Golf Club presents the past, present and future of golf sport in Kenya much as it does evoke joy and sadness.

Joy because it is the foundation of golfing in Kenya, at least among the Africans. It also presents the opportunity to take the golf sport to the grassroots.

But sadness because the course has been neglected and land grabbers are like the vouchers waiting for terminally ill animal to make its last kicks.

The club has nurtured some of the who-is-who in Kenya, not only in golf but also in business and government services.

Among its honorary members are the late business man and politician Njenga Karume, current Attorney General Githu Muigai, the CEO of the Nation Media Group Linus Gitahi and the Chairman of Royal Media Group S.K. Macharia.

The first Kenyan African golfers started here because the other golf clubs were patronized by the Europeans and Africans could only be admitted as caddies.

The caddies needed somewhere to practice their game, and Ndumberi Golf Club, formerly known as St. Andrews was there choice.

According to one of Kenya's golf pioneer former Central Bank of Kenya Governor Duncan Ndegwa, "the abandoned emergency village football pitch was then the African Meccah of golf," he writes in his autobiography, "Walking in Kenyatta Struggles".

Former professional golfer John Mucheru and former Member of Parliament Lawrence Nginyo Kariuki are the two pioneers of the Ndumberi Golf Club, having been some of the first African caddies in the country. By then, Africans were not allowed to play but acted as caddies for the Europeans.

In his autobiography, Ndegwa captures some of the first scenes when Africans, mostly former caddies were first allowed to play on same teams with the Europeans:

"At a competition in Muthaiga one day Muojoria from Nyeri arrived in gumboots...in time ready to tee off. He wiped gloveless hands on the wet grass and proceeded to strike a long and straight ball onto the fairway. His European partners avoided speaking to him until the fifth tee when the cards were exchanged. He went on to win that day. The day Mucheru's name appeared among the list of winners of Kenya Amateur Champions, the ice of integrating Africans into the competitive game had been broken."

The club was started in 1963 largely by the African caddies but soon attracted the interest of budding young African civil servants like John Michuki, Duncan Ndegwa, Nat Kang'ethe and former Vice President Joseph Karanja.

The club nurtured the core of the Kenya golfing fraternity that has today grown to influence such appetite as falling over to buy residential homes that promise golfing amenities.

Kenya also hosts some of the best golf courses in the continent although professional playing has yet to catch up.

The old generation of the pioneer golfers like Duncan Ndegwa and Jeremiah Kiereini are now retiring, giving way to the younger blood, a group among which some want to go professional, promising to transform the game further.

Joseph Wamiti is one of the pioneer members of the Ndumberi Golf Club and served as one of the chairman in the 1990s. He is among the members of the club with graying hair that are slowly giving way to the younger people.

He speaks glowingly of the club's history, but that glow fades as soon as he speaks how for many years, members have fought-off land grabbers who wanted to subdivide the course into commercial and residential plots.

True to his words, at the one end of the course, some people have built residential houses and others are farming maize.

"Land grabbing is the biggest threat to this course," he said. "We do not have a problem with the course being used for other sporting activities because it is a communal property that should benefit everyone, but it should be preserved."

He said during the years when land grabbing was rampant in Kenya, communal open grounds like those of Kirigiti in Kiambu were grabbed and now the Ndumberi Golf course is overused for public activities because it is one of the few amenities in the district.

The club members also want the District Officer (DO) office relocated from the centre of the course to one of the ends to give ample space for the golf players.

Outside the DO's office is a space used by to park Matatus because of perceived security of the Administration Police officers guarding the office but this has become a major distraction for golfers avoiding to hit the windows and the windscreens of the vehicles.

The 9-hole course is to say the least in a dilapidated mess that require to be addressed. The current efforts to devolve the golfing game and culture to the lower income groups and especially the youth can pay-off very well if a club like Ndumberi is utelised well.

It helps bring golf to the grassroots, expanding it from the affluence of the society. The course is also a perfect opportunity where golfing is playing the role of keeping off the youth from destructive activities.

According to Wamiti, some members of their junior club have now been accepted into the mainstream golf clubs while others are playing competitive amateur games.

This is setting an example to other youths to get interested in the sport and the club is planning to upscale this program.

A member of the Kenya Golf Union which has reciprocating arrangements with other clubs like Kiambu Golf Club, Ndumberi Golf Club members say they would like sponsors to get more involved with their club to help nurture the sport in the community.

"Most of the corporate sponsorship, like by the Kenya Breweries Limited died off. We now depend on individual sponsors. An average sponsorship for a tournament is 590 US dollars," said Wamuti, the most senior member of the 105-members club.

The club is the most pocket friendly, with members paying a subscription fee of 79 dollars per year and a membership fee of 1.8 dollars per month.
Newspaper headline: Legendary Kenya's golf club needs facelift