Rose Naliaka is a self-taught golfing champion. She is the first and only professional female golfer in Kenya and founder of the Rose Naliaka Foundation and Rose Naliaka Golf Academy that are credited with bringing golf, widely considered the preserve of the affluent and dominated by men, to under-privileged girls.
Rose Naliaka has travelled the world, played at some of the most reputable golf courses and won international fame. Now in her 60s, she is still gracing the lush greens, only this time she is focused on passing on her self-honed skills to young under-privileged girls in Kenya.
Her introduction to the sport could be described as a lower than average entry. Unlike other leading golfers, she was not scouted by a trainer because of her excellent skills or picked out by an expert for her knack.
Naliaka was an ordinary girl living in Kitale – a small, slow town – and being raised by a doting grandmother after her parents separated. She stumbled on golf in the unlikeliest and most unexpected way.
For some time, she had wanted to own something beautiful. So when her friend won a beauty vanity case (make-up kit) from a golf competition, she wanted one too. She leapt blindly onto the golf course eager to win a similar gift.
Weeks later, armed with an incomplete set of borrowed clubs and loads of sharp focus, her golfing journey began.
“On my second day on the golf course in Kitale, I entered a competition and played with the men – watching how they hit the ball and copying them,” she says, recalling the way she hacked and hacked at the ball before eventually winning a prize of five golf balls. It was this less than impressive early lesson that whet her appetite and gave her the confidence she needed to build her golfing career.
It was easy for Naliaka to find her footing as she had had a flair for sports from her primary and high school days spent in Meru, Sabaot and Kisii, where she played football and participated in track and field events.
The now-retired teacher and administrator moved to Nairobi only after finding a convenient golf course where she could carry on playing golf.
“My routine was simple – work, home and club on the weekends. Within months I started winning. I got my handicap in less than six months,” Naliaka says.
Usually, getting a handicap can take up to two years for new golfers depending on how fast they learn the game, how much they train and the rounds they play on various courses.
She was rising fast and more importantly, having fun at it.
In 1984, barely two years after she stepped on to the golf course for the first time, she was selected to join the national team. She says the national coach was taken aback by her exemplary skills.
“It was a real joy for me to play golf. I was good; so, so good,” she says, obviously proud of her mastery of the intricate game.
Naliaka also had a stint in the US with a professional coach but this was after she had learnt the tricks of the game. What they shared was what she already knew. “The lessons came late!” she quips.
She played amateur golf for about 20 years before turning professional in 2005. By then she had won most of the local tournaments. She had won the Kenya Ladies Open five years in a row. She went on to win the famous Leonard ball tournament that would be played across the leading golf clubs in the country a record 17 times! She remained unbeaten in this competition until she quit professional golf.
She claimed regional titles in neighbouring Tanzania and Uganda, and won the All Africa Challenge in Cote d’Ivoire, becoming the first Kenyan to lift the continental trophy. She also played at her favourite course and competition in Dubai and won the Ladies Open three times.
“Instead of the beauty vanity case I had wished for, I ended up winning 10 Samsonite Golf Hard Sided Travel Cover cases and canvas boxes,” she recalls.
These high-end travel cases would help to protect her golf clubs during air travel.
Naliaka was the only Kenyan to play in the World Cup. “I was so privileged,” she says of her fast rise and strong desire to be the best.
Interestingly, the magnitude of her success dawned on her years later, when one of her two adopted daughters – the top-ranked golfer Naomi Wafula – won the All Africa individual challenge junior trophy at the age of 15. Wafula was also the motivation behind the Rose Naliaka Golf Academy. As a four-year-old, she would tag along with her mother to the club and two years later, the little girl took off just like her mentor.
“One day I gave her a club and she swung well. Right there Naomi the golfer was born,” says Naliaka.
She founded the Rose Naliaka Foundation and Rose Naliaka Golf Academy to provide a golfing oasis for under-privileged girls in Nairobi. Here, girls are taught life skills as they are taught golf.
Apart from teaching the game at the unrestricted Golf Park course on Ngong Road, she also uses the base for workshops, seminars and golf clinics. Having retired from her administration job at BBC Monitoring in 2010, she has more time to focus on the academy.
She deliberately chose Jamhuri Primary School that neighbours the sprawling Kibera slum as the starting point for her foundation. It was a location picked for easy access by children from the slum. The programme has seen many girls practise on the course over the weekend. Naliaka’s aim is to turn them into world-class golfers, but the long-term goal is a university-bound future for the girls, many of whom come from deprived homes.
The most outstanding students from the Academy are her daughters Wafula and Mary Monari, who have already represented the country in several international events including the Africa Youth Olympics in 2014, where the former won silver.
“Our aim is to educate girls through golf. All the girls who started with us are doing well in school possibly because of the discipline golf instills,” says Naliaka.
She also sets high goals for the girls. She believes goals are core in uplifting the standards of women’s golf in the country. This is, however, a daunting task, with Golf Park being the only listed public course and a strenuous education curriculum that has reduced – and in some cases completely eliminated – physical education.
“I am the first and only professional woman golfer,” she says, expressing the hope that the gap can be bridged with the girls she trains.
“When Naomi wins I still feel her best is yet to come,” she says, revealing the high expectations she has and which she hopes will inspire, motivate and create a challenging and stimulating environment at the academy. She hopes it will be the first all-girls golf training facility not only in Kenya, but the region.
She celebrates golf as a game of honour that instilled in her discipline and a sense of accomplishment both on and off the course. She reckons it is a sport that can develop character and help young girls become ladies and boys become gentlemen. Time management is also of the essence, as one round of the game can take a whole day and one must create the time to practice
“It is the only game that does not require a referee hence the discipline, responsibility and honesty. You record your score as it was and as it happened.”
Naliaka’s international tours presented the opportunity to meet her role models from who she tried to pick one or two tips whenever they met or when she watched them on television. Most, like Annika Sorenstam, Laura Davies and Paula Grimmer, began playing the game when they were much younger or had the luxury of being mentored by some of the game’s leading trainers.
“I wish someone had introduced me to the high level of the game. I could have been as big as they were. I played them when I was old and they were still young and energetic,” she says, adding that this was another motivation for training young girls in Kenya.
Naliaka funds the foundation from her own pocket but has been lucky to get a much-needed boost in terms of donations from well-wishers who have been warmed by her zeal to spread the game.
She finds gratification in mothering the girls, financing their education, coaching and chauffeuring them to their training or event venues. She has travelled with the junior team to the Africa events and was the automatic pick as coach for the national team that competed at the Youth Olympics in Botswana, where her daughter won the bronze prize.
Naliaka does not play as consistently as she would like because of a demanding schedule that sometimes extends beyond her foundation. But she does occasionally manage to get on the course and hit some decent shots.
“I had not touched a golf club for years because of my sessions with the children and a shoulder injury,’ she says. But when she got back, she was surprised. “It’s like I never stopped. I am playing just the way I used to play!”
In 2011, Naliaka was named the Community Hero of the national sports personality awards, an accolade presented to a Kenyan who has used sports as an agent for change, especially among under-privileged youths.
This gave her encouragement that she was on the right track. Ultimately, Naliaka would like her successes to be measured beyond her lifetime.
Words of Wisdom
- “My aim is to turn the girls into world-class golfers but the long-term goal is a university-bound future, as many of them come from deprived homes.”
- “All the girls who started with us are doing well in school, possibly because of the discipline golf instills.”
- “Golf is a sport that can develop character and help young girls become ladies and boys become gentlemen.”
- “Golf is the only game that does not require a referee hence the discipline, responsibility and honesty.”