Monday, February 14, 2011

Zain (Airtel) Media Golf Challenge

The Airtel predecessors came up with this public relations masterstroke with an aim of introducing the game of golf to journalists  in a monthly tournament involving sports journalist drawn from all private and public media houses including those drawn from Presidential Press Service.

The journalists whose Loyalty membership and green fees are paid for by Airtel at Golf Park, Kenya’s only public golf course; meet once a month for a tournament during which winner are awarded prizes and league points.

The leading golfers so far have been Tony Kwalanda of K24, Tony Timase of Citizen TV, Robin Njogu of Capital FM, Charles Kerich of Star and Kipchalat of PPS. Lady journalists are not to be left behind and the monthly tourney has a good representation of ladies as well.

It’s interesting that such an initiative is undertaken by a telcom firm and not Kenya Golf Union.  The media has been very good to the golfing community, what with a whole fee page devoted to weekend draws every Friday. For a sport played by such a small section of the public this is more than a fair share of space. Also due to a heavy involvement of blue chip companies in golf sponsorship, the Monday and Tuesday sports pages are also healthily sprinkled with golf results. 

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