The team will face off against nine other countries from the region being Angola, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Ahead of the competition, two team members, Diane Lucas and Kesentseng Dube got a moral booster when their World Amateur Rankings (WAR) improved. Lucas jumped 1 349 places up on the rankings after winning the Orapa Closed, landing in position one, 120 worldwide while Dube climbed up 491 places up to being in number four, 105 in the world.
Speaking to SportMonitor, Dube, who is also the team captain, said they have been preparing for the tournament since learning about it in October, although at times they were not training together. He said they sent videos to each other in order to correct each other especially the swing of the golf club. “We are going to this tournament motivated after rankings for myself, Lucas and Dikgang Lemogang improved. The young members of the team are also motivated for being in the senior team alongside us. Remember that in the next few years they will be taking over this team. Preparations have been good, we played together, coming up with new strategies. We were glad that we could train in the Stanbic Bank Gaborone Golf Club, due to the sponsorship that we received from the club. We also got a chance to play against pro golfers,” he said.
Dube said although preparations were better, the golf course was a challenge, explaining that from summer to winter the condition of the course changes. In summer, the course is slow and the ball does not roll a lot while in winter the course surface is hard and the ball rolls long distance. Dube believes that they have a strong team that is expected to do well in the competition.
“The peak season for a golfer is from 16 years up to 35 years, which means more youngsters should be introduced into the team. When you age, your drive reduces, and that means you should retire and start grooming youngsters,” he said. Dube said in the last tournament, Botswana finished in position nine out of 14 countries in 2017 in Eswatini. In 2018 the team finished in position seven out of eight countries. The team: Lucas (51): He started playing golf in 1995 in Selebi-Phikwe and to date he has won 31 national tournaments including the Botswana Open. Handicap: 0.7. Dube (40): He has been playing golf for the past 24 years and has won three championships in 2013, 2015 and 2024.
He has been a runner-up in a number of local Botswana Golf Union (BGU) competitions. He has represented Botswana at regional and continental level. Handicap: 0.1. Lerako Molefe (19): He has been playing golf for the past 10 years. He has played tournaments in Malaysia at the Kids Golf Championship and has always played in the continental junior championships. Handicap: 2.6. Lemogang (56): He has been playing golf since 2003 and has played Region 5 tournament four times, once in Zambia and three times in Zimbabwe. He has also played in the All Africa Championship once in South Africa, the Windhoek Championship in Namibia. Handicap: 2.9.
