Going into last weekend's All Africa Golf Challenge in Egypt, the expectations from the Ugandan ladies team weren't high enough to suggest a shock win but then again, the hopes weren't as low in a tournament that included upstarts such as Senegal, Togo and Angola.

Monica Ntege, Flavia Namakula and Eva Okatch were embarking on the daunting task of posting sub 80 scorecards in Africa's premier prize.

Before the tournament, Namakula dropped a hint on a solid team performance as the precursor to a respectable position. However, repeating the perfection of 2000 when Uganda finished third was never going to be easy for the trio. And their task proved to be near impossible without the services of a full time coach.

Instead, team captain Alice Owori was banking on the individuals' fighting spirit to lift the team to lofty heights.
In the end, just like in 2006 when the team finished a disappointing 11th, this time they went a step backwards after three below-par days attributed largely to Ntege's forgettable show.

Okatch led the way with a modest total gross of 262 closely followed by Namakula's 263 while Ntege, the team's mainstay and biggest hope, trailed distantly with 274. Ntege was so poor that she even failed to return a single sub 90 score in the three days. That Ntege, who has finished not less than runner-up six times at the Uganda Open was 32 shots behind current champion Mary Karano is inconceivable.

South Africa emerged champions for the eighth time in nine years ahead of hosts Egypt.

dlumu@ugandaobserver.com