Grief, golf and growing up: The Shujaa tournament that turned loss into legacy
The winning pair of mother & son, receiving the Shujaa Memorial Trophy from Mr & Mrs Kavore Kariuki (L-R) Mrs. Wagaki Gicheru, Mr. Kavore Kariuki, Mrs. Mwikali Kavore, & Mwathi Gicheru)
At Muthaiga Golf Club, a father’s grief and a son’s memory have quietly become a cornerstone of junior golf in Kenya
By Martin Weche
A family golf tournament held yesterday at Muthaiga Golf Club in Nairobi brought together parents, children and friends in the third edition of the Shujaa Memorial Parent-and-Child Golf Tournament, honouring a young man who died prematurely and left a community searching for a way to grieve with purpose.
Wagaki Gicheru and Mwathi Gicheru claimed the overall title with a nett score of 57, edging out Santiago Villamizar and Lorenzo Villamizar, who finished as runners-up on 60 nett after a countback. Thyagarajan Harish and Shashwat Harish also returned 60 nett to take third place. In the guest category, Jane Gacheri and George Ikirima won on 66 nett via countback, while Jay Sandhu and Shane Sandhu triumphed in the nine-hole category with 32 gross. Richmond Gatu and Mureithi Gatu claimed the Nearest-to-the-Pin contest.
The tournament is named after Shujaa Kavore, who was born on Mashujaa Day — Kenya’s national heroes’ holiday — and earned his name accordingly. He died from cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease, at an age that left those who knew him feeling the particular injustice of a life cut short too soon. He had been a familiar presence at Muthaiga, and the fifth hole there holds a specific significance: it was where he once recorded a hole-in-one, a moment that those who witnessed it have not forgotten.
His father, Kariuki Kavore, established the tournament in the immediate aftermath of that loss, looking for something to hold onto. Three years on, what began as a family mechanism for coping with grief has grown into an event that draws competitors across generations and has taken on a life of its own.
“The idea of this tournament is a painful one, as it came from the loss of my son Shujaa,” Kavore said. “One of the ways we decided to cope with the grief is to have this tournament as a way of remembering him, since we always played golf with him every Sunday.”
There is nothing performative about that sentiment. Kavore watched his daughter Princess play alongside him throughout the afternoon, a quiet, visible reminder of what the day is really about — not scorecards, but the particular kind of togetherness that golf between family members produces, and which no trophy can adequately represent.
A tree planted in Shujaa’s honour stands within the club grounds, and the family yesterday donated 200 indigenous tree seedlings to Muthaiga Golf Club, deepening an environmental tribute that now forms part of the tournament’s identity. It is a detail that says something about the Kavore family’s approach to remembrance: not passive, but active and outward-looking, choosing to contribute something living to the place that meant so much to their son.
The tournament has also become a platform for the Junior Golf Foundation, an initiative that has been quietly expanding junior golf’s reach across Kenya. For an annual membership fee of KSh1,000, registered children gain access to courses nationwide — a model designed to make a traditionally exclusive sport accessible to a broader generation of young Kenyans.
Adam Nesbitt, a friend of Shujaa and son of long-standing Muthaiga member Nick Nesbitt, has watched that growth firsthand. “The Junior Golf Foundation is doing a fantastic job,” Nesbitt said. “The programme is getting bigger. We started with about 50 to 60 kids, but we are now over 100 kids, which is also increasing competitiveness. Everyone is getting better, and this is great.”
Nesbitt was present when Shujaa made his hole-in-one on the fifth hole. He noted that the date of the tournament carries particular emotional weight: Shujaa died on his own birthday. That coincidence — or cruelty, depending on how one holds it — gives the annual gathering a gravity that transcends sport.
What the Shujaa Memorial Tournament has become is something rarer than a golf competition. It is a community’s formal agreement to remember someone well, to channel the weight of loss into something that produces joy and opportunity for others. Kavore did not set out to build a legacy event. He set out to survive grief. In doing so, he built both.
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Shamlal Puri