KAREN MASTERS
Locals Pros are on the right track
By Charan Tethy
T
he KCB Karen Masters 2019
was no doubt a great moment
for Kenyan pros as we had
a record eight pros make the cut.
We are beginning to see the fruits
of having an extra international golf
tournament held in Kenya. If we
can have another two more, one in
October and say January, we shall be
very well prepared to play the Kenya
Open.
The level of golf was extremely high.
There was a record 26 under par
winning the tournament while the
runner up shot 23 under par, which
is commendable. Last year, the
winning score was -18. So technically
the level went a notch higher.
I was pleased to see many very
highly ranked South Africans playing
in the tournament, which means
that they value the tournament and
that’s a great positive for Kenya. The
more we play with better players,
the better we will get. It’s a good
learning curve for our Kenyan pros
just to see that they can compete
with some of the best in the world.
If you look at the top, maybe 20
guys on the Sunshine Tour, they all
play on the PGA Tour, European Tour
and the Asian Tour. So there’s a lot
12
Alfred Nandwa
of similarities in the quality of the
players may be in the top 20, top
30 in the Sunshine Tour with the
European Tour players. weather was suitable as there was
very little wind this time and I think
that’s partly why the scores were also
very good.
The course was playing quite tough.
Karen is one of those courses where
if you hit bad shots, you’re going
to get punished. But if you hit the
ball well you get rewarded for it.
And that’s the hallmark of a good
championship course. And so the
guys who played well actually shot
good scores, but then the guys who
struggled had some bad scores. The One of the positive things is that
Greg Snow finished among the top
10. As a result of this he has been
invited to play in the Sunshine
Tour round in Swaziland. He got an
automatic invite into that by virtue
of his top 10 finish. And then he
also gets a ranking on the Sunshine
Tour now because he won some
significant money.