Kenya Open
Image credit: Karen Country Club
All images courtesy of Kenya Magical Open
Kenya Open back in the big time
T CELEBRATIONS Karen Country Club
his year, for the very first time, the Kenya Open Golf Championship joined the main PGA European Tour – a multi-milliondollar cavalcade that in 2019 will stage events in 28 countries outside the Americas. Played in March this year at the exclusive Karen Country Club (on occasions in the past it has also been staged at the Muthaiga Golf Club), the Magical Kenya Open Presented by Absa attracted professionals from far and wide as well as
a sprinkling of Kenya’s top players. This uprating of the event is a personal feather in the cap for the Hon. Najib Balala, Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife, who has personally backed its elevation to the main tour. It’s a shot in the arm, too, for the local game as well as, hopefully, for the tourism sector. European tour events receive pretty much wall-to-wall coverage by the Golf Channel as well as by global networks such as Sky Sports and SuperSport. So, lots of worldwide publicity for
Kenya – but at what cost? The total prize money of €1.1 million was not quite up there with the cash splashed around for many other PGA European Tour events and so, unfortunately, some of the game’s star names were absent. Inside the world’s top 50 the South African golfer Justin Harding was the highest-ranked player in the tournament.
New event But it can take a while to establish a new tour event in the minds of www.fly540.com
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