By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –

NATIONAL junior golf coach Patrick Mwendapole has said Zambia has to qualify for the 2015 World Junior Championships to be held in the United States of America having marginally missed out last year.
Mwendapole said Zambia just has to show the world that it was improving in junior golf by qualifying to such high level tournaments.
Only the top two African countries qualify to the World Junior Championships which would be played at the plush Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego.
“This year our eyes are firmly set on qualifying to World Championships to be held in the USA. Last year we almost made it but unfortunately we finished in close third. But encouragingly we were close. So this year, we are stepping up a gear,” he said.
Zambia finished third during the 2014 Africa Junior golf championships hosted at the Chainama Golf Club in Lusaka which saw perennial continental champions South Africa taking top spot with Zimbabwe finishing second.
Mwendapole said Zambia has been struggling to get a decent finish at the Africa Junior Championship but that fortunes changed in 2013 when the Timothy Sondashi-led side finished third in Mauritius, a first podium finish.
“At last year’s tournament, we were close to finishing second but we lost it on the last day and having come so close to making the World Championships, we know we can get it with just a bit more work and that’s where focus is,” he said.
Mwendapole said that Zambia now knows what it takes to make it to the big stage and that in the past few years, junior golf has been on the rise with the first ever World Championships appearance close to becoming a reality.
After the first podium finish in 2013, the Zambia team lost its captain Timothy Sondashi who graduated into the senior level and the following year once again saw the loss of its new captain Peter Munyinya who led them in the 2014 tournament.
“Actually last year, we had two players graduating and that was team captain Peter (Munyinya) and Charles Shalubobya but we have brought in a lot more players and competition this time is higher,” he said.
He was confident the new crop will raise the bar and get the coveted World Championships spot from the Africa Junior set for April.