Sky is the limit for TZ’s gifted golfer Nathwani

Tanzania’s up-and-coming golfer Jay Nathwani plays a shot during a past tournament. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • The Arusha Gymkhana Club’s teenager started to learn the game at the age of nine, and since then he has been making remarkable improvement to cut down handicap.

Dar es Salaam. Born in 2000 in Arusha, Jay Nathwani is among up-and-coming amateur golfers likely to flap the national flag high at international level.

The Arusha Gymkhana Club’s teenager started to learn the game at the age of nine, and since then he has been making remarkable improvement to cut down handicap.

He endured torrid three months tutelage of club professional Olais Mollel before earning handicap 36.

He was, thereafter, allowed to compete in club-organised events and Cross Country was his maiden tournament.

Arusha Gymkhana golf ageing veterans in the likes of Robby Chadha have provided him with huge inspiration as he scales his amateur golf career heights.

Arusha Gymkhana Club’s professional golfer Jimmy Mollel also has a hand in the tutelage of Nathwani.

He stepped up the ladder to feature in Tanzania Golf Union (TGU)-sanctioned events and the 2014 Arusha Open opened a room for early silverware haul, winning junior title.

After frequent practice sessions at the club’s nine-hole course he finished runners-up in the Birchand Memorial tourney with a handicap of 34 in 2016.

Golf flowed through his blood veins, dreaming the game more often and every time he thought of playing better on the course.

With strong backing from his daddy, Hitten, Nathwani boarded Edinburgh-bound return flight in 2014 to feature in the biennial British Junior Open championship.

The biennial tourney usually attracts huge entrants from across the globe and Nathwani represented Tanzania.

Nathwani made a huge impact to win African award in the tourney held at Kilmanork course in Scotland

He is not the first junior to feature in the tourney as some other juniors have in the past competed in the event as well. He joined Lugalo Golf Club’s lady golfer Ayne Magombe and former Dar Gymkhana amateur Sarfaraz Daya who also participated in the tourney in 2002. Magombe and Featured in the global tourney when Royal Musselburg Club of Edinburg played host to the tourney. They were joined by Zambian Madalitso Muthiya who has now joined the world of professional golfers.

Besides Daya and Magombe, Olais Mollel, Hussein Dewji and Abby Omari were the first Tanzanian juniors to compete in European soil when he played in the Commonwealth festival of Youth sports also staged in Edinburgh’s par-68 course of Longnidry in 1997.

Nathwani reached maturity as he was spotted by selectors of the Tanzania national team ahead of the Africa Region Four tournament or popularly known as East African Challenge Trophy.

He passed through domestic-organised qualifiers before joining the final squad that competed at Dar Gymkhana Club in August, 2017.

He played two matches winning and losing. However, he says the tourney which was played in match-play format, gave him huge confidence as he continues to polish his game.

He is playing off handicap five and now based in Rundle College in South Africa for high school studies. The college offers golf lessons as part of the education curriculum.

Callaway is Nathwani’s first-choice brand of equipment with Taylor Made as the second best for him. Besides golf, Nathwani has slight passion for swimming and basketball.