I made my first golf club out of sticks and boundary wire growing up in Harare. Twenty years later, I'm on a mission to play every course I can — and tell you honestly what it's like.
Growing up in Harare, Zimbabwe, golf wasn't something kids like me played. It was a rich man's sport — manicured fairways, expensive equipment, a world that didn't feel like mine. But I was fascinated by it. I'd watch tournaments on TV and be completely hooked by the silence before a shot, the precision, the drama of a tight final round.
So I improvised.
I grew up at Chikurubi Police Camp in Harare — my father was a policeman. There were sticks and boundary wire everywhere, and I used to bend and shape it into makeshift clubs. The ball? A deodorant roll-on. That was my golf course. The back of the camp. Whatever grass or dirt was in front of me.
There was a man at the camp named Mr Mandaza — a professional golfer — and we used to stop and watch him hit balls whenever we could. There was also Nick Price, Zimbabwe's greatest golfer, who was all over the news in the early 90s when I was in high school, winning majors and making a name for himself on the world stage. For a young Zimbabwean kid, that meant something. It made the game feel possible, even if it still felt far away.
"Here was a Black man rewriting the rules of a sport that had always looked a certain way, played by a certain type of person. As a 25-year-old Black African man new to the UK, that mattered more than I could put into words. It lit something in me."— Jabunong · September 2004 · Stockwood Park Golf Course, Luton
The real story. No highlights — the whole thing.
Growing up at Chikurubi Police Camp, I shaped boundary wire into golf clubs and used a roll-on deodorant as a ball. Watched Mr Mandaza hit shots at the camp. Watched Nick Price win majors on TV. The game felt impossible — but I couldn't stop watching.
I came to the UK in 2002. In my third year here, my father-in-law George — Sekuru, as we call him — suggested we go out for a round at Stockwood Park Golf Course in Luton. My brother-in-law Mutsa was visiting from South Africa. We were just three men on a sunny afternoon, giving it a go.
I missed nearly every tee shot. Shanked it. Duffed it. Made a complete mess of myself. But I left the course completely addicted. Not to the success — I'd had none of that. To the challenge.
I went on eBay and bought a starter pack of clubs. But I made myself a rule: I would not set foot on a full course until I could make clean contact with the ball. Three months, nothing but the range and a par-3. Club to ball. Again and again. Until the contact became real.
Joined Stockwood Park Golf Club — the course where it all began. Playing two or three times a week. The game had become part of who I was.
Moved membership to Redbourn Golf Club in Hertfordshire. Deepening the game, widening the passport. Course two in what would become a long list.
Got a job at Amazon in 2012 — a career I respect and am proud of. But in 2013, I cancelled my golf membership. Work, responsibility, life. For almost a decade, golf became occasional — a loose membership with the Zambezi Golf Association keeping me connected to the game without the full commitment of a club.
I rejoined Redbourn during the Covid years. Lockdown gave time back to people, and I rediscovered what I'd been missing. The game. The walk. The challenge.
I'm 47 now. I have two sons. I have a career I've worked hard for. And recently I sat down and asked myself: outside of my family, when have I been happiest? The answer was obvious. On a golf course.
I started this site for a few reasons, and I want to be honest about all of them.
Not a highlight reel. The rounds where it clicks, the rounds where it doesn't, the courses that surprised me, the ones that humbled me.
My audience isn't tour professionals or single-figure club members playing 60 rounds a year. It's the golfer with a 10-plus handicap and a busy life — someone who squeezes in 15 rounds a year if they're lucky. Someone who wants to play more but has to be smart about where they spend their time and money. I want to be the honest guide that helps you decide whether a course is worth your precious Saturday morning.
They're starting to show an interest in the game. I want them to see that the game their dad loves has a history — his history — and that the boundary wire kid from Chikurubi eventually found his way onto the fairway.
"Golf does something that very few things in life do. Every round is different. And the way you respond to those challenges — a bad tee shot, a tight lie, a putt that breaks the wrong way — is really just a reflection of how you handle everything else."
"This is that story. And it's still being written."
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