Playing golf invokes one’s creative thinking- golfer.
Golfer Hussein Bagalana likens the game of golf to – “killing two birds with one stone”
He says beyond the fitness side of the game, its challenging nature beckons one to pose the inevitable question; “how can I do things differently?”
It is an exigent sports activity, which provokes one to think outside the box, instills an extra-ordinary level of patience within individuals, grounded in the belief that – good things take time.
He goes further to hint that “golf refreshes the memory and is important in human metabolism, among a series of mental benefits a person can enjoy” …
We are reminded golf is a perfect form of mental therapy as it allows one to interact with the nature, which perpetuates an appreciation of the spectacular composition of greenery and landscape; the environment.
This publication caught up with Hussein Bagalana, a professional golfer and trainer. Bagalana is an exuberant personality who trains and plays golf for a living. He says golf means a lot more to life than just playing.
Bagalana took us down to memory lane: At eight years is when his inspiration was born while watching his elder brothers who cherished the sports to the end. A graduate with a honors Degree in Mass Communication, Bagalana is a member of Uganda Golf Club, Kampala, Kololo terrace, along Yusuf Lule road.
Through golf, Bagalana has earned an enviable career. His starting capital for the side business were proceeds of golf.
He has built his game on foundations of: creativity, strong thrust for excellence, meticulous planning, self-discipline, resilience and an extraordinary level of patience. Golf also awakened his other traits as an entrepreneur and philanthropist.
Bagalana is nevertheless, not blind to realities of life struggles; he is aware, failure is part of the path to success.
He stresses the importance of golf as a mental therapy because the player is negotiating against nature.
Bagalana divulged that golf fine tunes one to be patient, which is an integral facet of a golfer’s approach to life challenges and opportunities.
Bagalana says those qualities inculcate a managerial spirit within an individual, an important quality from which a person connects with high-end personalities in life.
Participation in business
Having realized that it takes a side hustle to extend one fortune, Bagalana was cracked with the idea to start a music company – Mic Zone Records, proving an immense addition to Uganda’s entertainment industry.
From inception, his enterprise has been at the forefront of managing events, nurturing talent, selling entertainment products within the country and across the borders.
Mic Zone Records has extended a platform to many practitioners in entertainers
(artists, models, comedians’ etc.) he proudly remarks “Everything on entertainment, we put a finger on it and try to make it better,”
To succeed, Bagalana relies on his secret weapon – finding the right balance in golf and business.
Uganda’s education not the right antidote to spur youth entrepreneurs
Hussein Bagalana feels Uganda’s education system is not effectively tailored to job market demands. He calls upon responsible stakeholders in the education space to overhaul the system and put in place a skills-based learning initiative that trains job makers, instead of job seekers.
“What if someone overseas something, and comes up with a project were people right from the early ages are taught to demonstrate or live in a right discipline of money?” Advises Bagalana.
For the youth to sustain start-ups, he advises: “We ought to learn how to manage money, what is money? How do you have it? How can you accumulate passive income? How can you have money make money for you? At the end of the day, it builds to that. The billionaires we have not only have billions in cash. They also pour billions in businesses making businesses for them”
He says, the citizenry can also take heed to exercise the highest level of patience, undertake precision-guided research before investing in any business. This Bagalana believes lowers chances of failure.
He says, he has embraced every fall in the right way. ” For challenges, you can choose to call them challenges, or a learning moment. Personally, I look at something and say, “OK is there something to learn there””?
He challenges the youth who are pessimistic about starting businesses to discover their purpose, through deep focus, being calm and listening to the environment as the best passage to ensure excellence.
In his view, citizens have to be unprecedented in their aggression and resilience, be determined to take risks, develop self-confidence and be optimistic in life.
How to join the golf fraternity

Uganda Golf Course
Bagalana says the process begins with the identification of a golf facility (Golf Course) and approaching those who run the establishment, chiefly; the golf committees or the management to get introduced into the system.
At Uganda Golf Club, where he is a member, Bagalana says structures to allow entry are well established. He says all entry stages have particular windows. For instance, kids or youth levels, have subsidized membership fees.
What a man can do, a woman can do it better!
Cliché sounds familiar; right?
It always seems impossible before it is done!
Today, it is no longer odd to mention that women can excel in business, just like men.
It is a turn off that tasks we dread, often turn out to be doable, without much ado. Well, this is the grim reality.
This anecdote is effectively commensurate with the extremely low participation of the female gender in embracing business initiatives. A sizeable number of women in Uganda have become permanent prisoners of ‘business phobia’
Even as a good number of women try to meticulously design their career path through starting up business ventures, the numbers are still at a record low. Why?
Most women still face barriers that impinge their participation in business, like the struggle to obtain funding, capital from lending institutions or families, and preconceived notions of their appropriate roles in business and society. But this low participation is also attributed to laziness and negativity.
Kayenje Shalom, a student at Makerere University awaiting graduation for an award in Bachelor’s degree of Arts in Arts is a perfect precedent, that women who rise up and defy negative forces succeed.

Shalom Kayenje, CEO Shakia Events finds time to play Golf during her leisure at Namuloge Golf Club
Kayenje says most women especially young girls in colleges and higher learning centers fail to sustain their living standards, under completely avoidable circumstances.
He notes how they resort to carrying a begging plate, and other malevolent means to survive, hence sliding into peril.
Women have in the past been enslaved by society prejudice that boxes them into submission to accept a position as dependents on men. This unfortunately empowered the craze of sugar daddies for survival
The social economic shifts as an x-factor
However, dramatic shifts like change in national policy regimes, socio-economic transformations, economic crises, the desire to be independent and circumvent exploitation by men has forced a handful of women to play a primary role in business initiatives.
This is the reason behind Kayenje’s unrelenting work ethic.
At 24 years, Kayenje is a successful entrepreneur and a philanthropist, overseeing operations of an events management -Shakia Events as the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Unlike most of her contemporaries, Kayenje, also a passionate golfer has found a fortune in doing business. And guess what… she has bagged abnormal returns on investment, with also a substantial investment in philanthropy.
Investing in business has beefed her welfare margins at the University, support to her parents and siblings and channeled other proceeds to agriculture.
Inspiration to do business
She recounts during her rookie years when her manager exploited her sweat, while working as an usher for an events company.
As fate would decide later, lessons from her former boss were the life changing moments that clicked her business savvy.
“I used to work for them but they wouldn’t pay me, so along the way, I tried to study the situation, and I was like but what these people are doing, can’t I have my own company, where business is going to come straight to me and I will have to earn some profits in it,” she recalls.
Dear women, shake off the dependency syndrome.
A mindset transformation is urgently needed. Kayenje believes, this can be paired with other values like the appetite to excel, honesty, self-discipline, adroitness, integrity, diligence all which are emblematic of her daily menu to achieve prominence in life.
The Thief of Time
Procrastination, she says, is as good as suicide. One must rise up now, and make an impact, or live hopelessly forever. She advises young women and youth in general to embrace digital marketing for their business products.
“They shouldn’t wait to have that capital of say: ‘I need a million to start a business’, hm! you can start small. If it is the chapati business you’ve chosen, start small, with your Shs.100,000. You can do something, you don’t have to first get millions,” she remarks
Challenges as opportunities
Each experience is an opportunity to learn, says the 24-year-old and failure is part of the path to success she strongly believes. She adds: “Failure should be a motivation, to provoke questions in your mind on how to improve and do things uniquely. Giving up, amounts to being your own worst enemy”
What explains the collapse of start-ups
The young entrepreneur goes in depth on what fails many start-ups. Says inconsistences in plan formulation and implementation, having a “get rich quick” mentality among the youth, inadequate access to funds, lack of necessary competences and wrong investing.
Her kind advise to anyone is: to strive and actualize impact investing- through making extensive and ground-breaking research about business viability; hinged on the notion – business suits the exigencies of the time.
She also challenged young people to have greater passion for what they do. “Before they start a business, they should make extensive research, a lot of research before investing their money, not just this top research but they should go deep into what they are going to do”
A lot has contributed to her success in business, but her unequalled creativity and patience, acquired through playing golf explain her remarkable success.
Written by Muhoozi Mourice