Vipingo Ridge
By Gary Gimson
Whether you’re playing or staying…it’s pure magic
W
hen I first visited Vipingo Ridge back in 2009 the golf course had been more or less laid out but was not yet open to the playing public. The makeshift ‘clubhouse’ was an opensided makuti-roofed shack. How times have changed. Today, what was once a 2,500 hectare sisal-and-mango estate is now the PGA-accredited Baobab Course – widely regarded as the finest golf development of its kind in East Africa. There are, of course, rivals who could also make a claim to this accolade. There is Naivasha’s now well-established and excellent Great Rift Valley Lodge and Golf Resort and over the border in Tanzania, we have the delightful and slightly different Kilimanjaro Golf and Wildlife Estate project. But none, I would argue, quite matches the magical Vipingo Ridge in terms of location, development quality and the overall setting of the course itself. ‘Challenging’ is an overused word when describing golf courses. Sometimes it means impossibly tough and 18 holes of misery for high handicap players like me. But the Baobab Course manages quite
All images courtesy of Vipingo Ridge
brilliantly to combine a mix of difficulty and fun – tough enough, but not too tough. The quality of course is widely acknowledged. Vipingo Ridge has been voted Kenya’s number one by Top100Courses. com for three years running and received the World Golf Award for the nation’s best course in 2017. But as general manager Andrew Kuiyaki told Fly-EA: “Premier golf courses such as ours are works in progress and we will never stop making improvements, so expect it to get better and better.”
Tournaments What’s more, Vipingo is gaining a wider reputation as a top tournament venue. Says Andrew: “We host several golf tournaments on an annual basis including, this year, two legs of the Ladies Coast Open on 2 and 3 August. And after a spectacular Pro-Am that saw 13 professionals from the Ladies European Tour partner Kenyan amateurs in February this year, we are hoping to host the very first official LET tournament in sub-Saharan Africa at the end of October.” Perhaps understandably, golf course
membership is restricted to homeowners. Every Vipingo Ridge homeowner pays an obligatory annual membership fee. This covers not only golf membership but also free use of all amenities (gym, tennis courts, horse-riding, beach club, etc). The annual subscription includes membership for two adults and two children aged up to 18. This is not some snooty, membersonly club, however. As Andrew points out: “Everyone is welcome on a pay by play basis. We also offer concessionary packages for regular players and people living locally.” And Vipingo Ridge is more than just a pretty golf course. There are properties to rent or buy, fine dining to be sampled and, to top it all, an exclusive members’ beach club just a few minutes away through the sisal. After a decade of steady and largely sympathetic property development, it’s fair to say the prime golf course-fronting plots have been snapped up long since and are now adorned with a variety of architectural creations. Most are strictly in keeping with the Swahili-style
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