His two terms at the helm of ZGA came to an end in July. “It was a very humbling experience,” he said. “I felt honoured to be asked by colleagues to lead the organisation. It was tradition for ZGA that the vice president would be requested to take over.” His tenure, which he described as one he “took very seriously,” was underpinned by a commitment to expand the reach of golf across Zimbabwe, spreading the game to all the four corners of the country. One of the flagship projects during his leadership was the ‘Train the Trainer’ programme, a grassroots initiative aimed at introducing golf to outlying parts of the country. The goal was to empower teachers and golf enthusiasts with beginner-level training so they could introduce children to the sport. The primary focus was school-aged youth, a demographic ZGA saw as the future of the game. “During the years, we rolled the ‘Train the Trainer’ programme that envisaged to introduce the sport in all the corners of the country, mostly outlying areas. We encouraged teachers and golf enthusiasts that needed a beginners’ programme in which they could be able to start up someone who needed to be introduced to golf. The programme was mainly targeted at school children, in which we wanted to ensure that we recruit as many children and interest them in the sport of golf. As we moved on, we realised we had challenges because in our desire to introduce the sport to so big a mass, there was a bottleneck. “Eventually, the sport needed to be played at a golf course, we have 40 courses in the country, and those courses are very sparsely distributed. We quickly realised that it will be difficult to teach some in rural areas, yet eventually, they could practice on a football pitch but they needed to be on the course. “To get those people, it needed serious financial input to achieve that so we thought the way that we envisaged to reach out could be done differently. As the years went by, we then concentrated on schools closer to golf courses. For example, we have a programme that we rolled at NUST where it is just a few meters away from Harry Allen Golf Club. We have children coming from all over. The financial backbone was quite huge on ZGA but we tried our best,” he explained. With the financial burden of development significant, Chikwana and his team turned to partnerships, strengthening ties with global governing bodies such as the R&A. The R&A’s support included sourcing nearly 40 junior golf bags distributed nationwide, giving clubs much-needed equipment for young players. Corporates and individuals also chipped in, contributing used clubs and thousands of golf balls, thanks in part to the Zimbabwe Open committee, which encouraged pros to donate balls after each round. “We then embarked on a journey in which we strengthened the relationships which we had with the R&A and they came to the party in a very big way. Part of their contributions was sourcing for us junior equipment, where we had close to 40 bags distributed throughout the country. This enabled all the golf clubs to have junior clubs in which those youngsters can share and be able to be introduced to the game. We also had contributions from the corporate world.” Among his proudest achievements is the establishment of a High Performance programme, long a dream of the association. With R&A support, elite junior golfers received coaching, access to advanced technology, and the latest equipment to help them compete on a higher level, whose results have been showing. ZGA also enjoyed clean audits and celebrated the successful hosting of the 2024 All Africa Golf Team Championship (AAGTC) held at the country’s oldest golf club, Bulawayo Golf Club last year. Chikwana remains on the ZGA board and continues to serve as the vice-president of the Africa Golf Confederation. As he bowed out, an amalgamation process to unify the three bodies running golf in Zimbabwe, the ZGA, the Zimbabwe Ladies Golf Union (ZLGU) and the Zimbabwe Professional Golfers Association (ZPGA), was underway. The process is set to make the three associations one entity and has the full support of the R&A.