Golf: Price is right for Zimbabwe

THE Zimbabwe Sports Commission has decided to give Nick Price special dispensation to play in next week's Dunhill Cup and World Cup next month despite complications over the golfer's citizenship.

Much Masunda, the Sports Commission's vice-president, said that Price, a British passport-holder, had decided to apply for the Zimbabwean citizenship he lost in 1984 when the government banned dual citizenship. The Commission's approval is conditional on government permission.

Masunda said he had been told by the Home Affairs ministry that Price, who lives in Florida, would have to return to Zimbabwe personally to present his case, and that Price had given an undertaking to do so. Price was born in South Africa and came to then Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, as a child.

Last year Zimbabwe allowed Bruce Grobbelaar, the Liverpool goalkeeper, to regain his citizenship, which he also lost in 1984, and he is a member of Zimbabwe's World Cup squad.