November 6th, 2023
In the
morning, I headed back to the Ugandan Wildlife Authority to try and make my
reservation. The place was packed. I sat down on the only available chair and
wondered how I was supposed to find someone from a company who would facilitate
me buying a permit. Most of the people,
about 15 of them, looked like they belonged to tour companies who were there to
buy multiple permits. After a while I
was finally able to talk to one lady, Sandra, and she let me know that there
was a permit available for the date I was looking for as well as the location,
as there are a few entrances into Bwindi National Park. Sandra asked me if I was paying by cash or
credit card, I was going for the latter.
She disappeared for five minutes and returned only to say “There’s been
a bit of a pickle.” I assumed the worst,
but she just said that I’d have to wait in the “sitting” line up to be able to
pay with a card. I guess if I paid with
cash, the transaction would have been relatively quick.
I sat for
almost an hour and nobody seemed to move.
I think I saw two or three people leave the office and I figured this
seemed like a waste of time. I asked
Sandra if I could return the following day and pay with cash, and I could. I headed to the bank and withdrew $600 USD,
as I had a $100 bill with me that I brought from Canada. Stupidly, I didn’t think that that bill was
an old one and wouldn’t be accepted by the Wildlife Authority. Oh well, I’ll figure that out tomorrow.
After over
2 hours in the office, it was now 12:15, a lot later than I expected to be
heading to the golf course. I briefly
contemplated delaying the round until tomorrow, but the weather forecast didn’t
look good and today was decent weather.
Let’s go. I grabbed a boda boda (motorcycle
taxi) to the course and walked into reception.
The same lady was behind the counter from Saturday when I went in to ask
some questions. She asked if I had a
collared shirt, since I was only wearing a t-shirt. Damn, didn’t think of that, and she stated
that she figured I would know that. I
did bring a long sleeved, collared shirt with me just in case of some kind of “semi-formal
affair” that I may go to during my travels.
I hopped on another boda boda, got him to take me back to the hostel, grabbed
my shirt and returned to the golf course.
This time a
young caddie named Timothy greeted me at the entrance. He seemed like a nice young man so we headed
inside the gate. Back at reception, I
showed the lady my long sleeve shirt, only to find out that it was no
good. It had to be a collared golf
shirt, a short-sleeved shirt. The solution
was to buy a shirt from the pro shop and I figured what the hell, let’s do
this. I was directed towards the pro
shop where the helpful lady found me a shirt that fit me, and not only that, it
matched my pants!
I then had
to deal with one of the pros at the course, Lawrence, who brought out some clubs
that I could rent. He asked me what my
handicap was, and I’m nowhere near that in my golf game…I don’t even know how
that is calculated. I joked that my
handicap was my swing!
The round
of golf was going to cost 100,000 Ugandan Shillings ($38 CAD) and the woman at
reception told me that renting clubs would be 50,000, but Lawrence wanted 100,000. We wandered over to reception and the woman
there backed me up that rentals were 50,000.
Lawrence claimed that these were superior clubs than the rental ones plus
it included balls and tees…oh, okay, those are expensive balls and tees! I decided WTF, I’d come this far, went back
and forth to the hostel, bought by golf shirt, let’s go. I paid the 100,000 and finally Timothy and I
headed to the links.
We walked onto the first tee box and another caddy said something to Timothy in the local language, Luganda. “You need to tuck in your shirt” Timothy told me. Boy, I’m not used to fancy golf courses. I then told Timothy that I was okay with starting off from the women’s tee off, but that didn’t go over well with him. Perhaps because there were other people and caddies around he didn’t want me to tee off from the ladies’ tee off. Part of the reason for me wanting to go closer to start was that the first hole was a long par 5. What a way to start! And it was uphill to boot. I tried to relax, focus on the basics…keep your left arm straight, know where the clubhead is at all times (thanks my flight park friend Michel for getting me to think about that) and keep your eye on the ball. Whack! I was actually quite pleased with my shot even though it only went about a hundred yards, into some rough grass past the ladies’ tee. Timothy kindly picked the ball out of the rough and put it on shorter grass. I had some more decent shots and my putting was good and I escaped with a 7…I was quite pleased with that.
A close putt...
As we worked
our way around the course, I got to know more about 23 year old Timothy. He was the fifth in a family of seven
children (big families are common here) and is attending university. He is studying international politics and
diplomacy with the hope of working for the UN one day. Another endeavor that he was pursuing was
taking lessons to get his driver’s licence.
It reminded me that a few days prior I had had a bit of a chuckle when I
saw a young woman in a car with an instructor and a sign on the roof stating that
it was a driving school. What lessons do
you need here? There are hardly any
traffic lights or roundabouts, and nobody seems to abide by any rules. As I mentioned in a previous post, there were
motorcycles driving down the wrong side of the road that had a median. But good on Timothy, he’s trying to improve
his situation in numerous ways. He’s lucky
too in that his driving school was very close to the golf course so when he’s
not busy caddying, he runs over there for another lesson.
In Canada I
only ever play 9 holes of golf. That’s
generally enough for me, plus the course I play at is only a 9-hole course. I had asked at the pro shop if there was a
difference in price if I played 9 or 18 holes, and there wasn’t. Since my general golf game isn’t that good (I
was playing at least double bogey golf on the first 7 holes), I was a bit
surprised when Timothy asked, and suggested, that we play the back nine as
well. He had caddied in the morning for
a woman who had shot an 82, a very good score for 18 holes, so I figured he
must be getting fed up with me, but he wasn’t, so we continued onto the back
nine. I did teach Timothy one thing
about golf…the ever important “foot wedge”!
(where you kick the ball into a more favorable lie).
At hole 13,
we caught up to a threesome (we’re talking golf terms here people!). The tee off was up on a hill and it backtracked
to where we came from when we had finished the previous hole. Timothy told me to head up the hill and he
would stay there to watch for my ball as there was a small creek at the base of
the hill before the hole headed back up another hill. It was another long par 5 and I was starting
to get a bit tired, I’d even worn away the skin on my third finger of my right
hand. One of the guys had lost his ball
and was taking time to find it when I saw Timothy start to walk up to the tee
box. He suggested that we skip the next
two holes as the tee box for hole 16 was nearby. I fully agreed with that…three more holes and
I definitely would have had my fill.
I asked
Timothy if he wanted to take a shot. He
nervously looked around for another other staff members, took off his caddy
pinny, and took a whack at a ball. I
lost it but he had skyed it a bit. “Try
again Timothy”. The next one was a
better shot. He ended up playing the
hole with me and should have had a par, but he missed a short putt. He put on his pinny on the next hole, not
wanting to push his luck and getting caught by some staff member, but I enjoyed
playing a hole with him.
I finished off with a decent last hole, thanked Timothy and gave him a generous tip and then sat back on the patio and enjoyed a few well deserved beers. It was an expensive round by my standards (about $100 USD when all was said and done), but well worth it.
My first round of golf in Africa!
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