Off the Course with Temi Katemboh

From being ‘forced’, or rather coerced, into playing golf in the beginning, it has been an ultimate life changer for Temi Katemboh. Katemboh, a freshman majoring in Business at Waldorf University, plays golf for the Waldorf Warriors.

In early 2011, when Katemboh was at the tender age of 13, Katemboh’s father came home one day and out of the blue told Katemboh to follow him to the golf club the next morning.

“I was like ‘What, the golf club? What’s that?’” he wittily questioned his father.

His father having been enrolled as a new member at the golf club at that time, decided to pull Katemboh into playing golf with him. He said that the other reason why his father introduced golf to him was to keep him more disciplined because growing up, he was a very naughty child. He would spend almost 12 hours just hitting balls at the golf club each day when he had breaks.

“During school holidays, my father would drop me off at the golf club at around 6:30 or 7 a.m. and only come back to pick me up at 7 p.m.,” he said.

He never stopped or gave up playing golf ever since that day and it altered his life for the better. The Kenyan born golfer who initially did not enjoy playing golf and who used to

think that golf was a boring sport which was played by mostly older people, is now a scratch golfer.

The biggest challenge he has faced in this journey has been failure, not living up to his own expectations and falling short. However, he continues to strive and is determined to keep going and he believes he is getting better each passing day.

“My role model when it comes to golf is Rory McIlroy,” he said.

“Though there are also Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Jason Day, but I would say Rory is my favorite golfer.”

In five years time, Katemboh sees himself playing on the European Tour, winning a couple tournaments per season and possibly even seven tournaments as it is his lucky number. He knows he has what it takes and believes that it is surely a possibility.