History of the Africa Challenge
By Bill Smith, Chairman, South Africa Golf Foundation.

1992 saw the birth of the "World Junior Golf Team Championship" in Japan. Countries from all over the world were invited to participate and Zimbabwe was invited from Africa. The reason for this was their strong tie with the "Junior Orange Bowl" in America. (A number of its committee members were also executive members of the World Junior Championships).

In 1995 South Africa was welcomed back into the international fold and was invited to play against Zimbabwe to decide who would participate in Japan. A team was sent to Harare to play in the local Junior Tournaments and finally in the "Test". The SA boys took almost all of the honours in the competitions and looked set to "walk" the Test Match. They were in for a rude awakening, being 22 shots off the pace after the first day. Zimbabwe eventually won by 12 shots and thus went to Japan for the 4th year.

The following year Zimbabwe was invited to Humewood, Port Elizabeth, for a revenge match and was soundly beaten by 29 strokes. Being the fifth Anniversary of the "World Junior Championships" both teams were invited to participate.

In 1997 it was decided to invite more African Teams to participate but sadly only Kenya and Zimbabwe accepted. This was the beginning of the "Africa Challenge". The Tournament was held at George and once again SA came out on top.

The following year Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe accepted invitations to Johannesburg. Against all odds Zimbabwe won by 2 strokes from SA to head off to Japan again.

The 1999 Challenge was held at Elephant Hills in Zimbabwe and Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and SA participated. South Africa won the Tournament quite convincingly, beating Zimbabwe by 25 strokes.

In 2000 the Challenge was held in Windhoek, Namibia and it was disappointing that Malawi, Namibia, Zimbabwe and SA were the only countries to participate.