Barclays Kenya Open prize money drops
Fans appreciate Kenyan professional golfers Greg Snow and Dismas Indiza (not in picture) on the 12th green during Barclays Bank Kenya Open Golf Championship at Karen Golf and Country Club on March 19, 2014 . PHOTO | CHRIS OMOLLO |
What you need to know:
- Greg Snow was the best placed local at 10th place on six under par 282.
- No Kenyan golfer has ever won the Barclays Kenya Open
- The Open has over the past couple of years offered a prize fund of 200,000 Euros (Sh21 million).
- The Kenya Open was last year won by South Africa’s Jake Roos who shot 10 under par 278 to take the first prize of 32,000 Euros (Sh3.3 million).
The Barclays Kenya Open, the country’s only major professional golf championship, has dropped in prize money ranking from top five, to ninth place in the European Challenge Tour golf series.
The Open, whose 2015 edition is set for April 9 to 12, has over the past couple of years offered a prize fund of 200,000 Euros (Sh21 million).
However, prize money in some of the events scattered over countries in Europe, Asia and Africa have gone up, which means there is need for the event organisers Kenya Open Golf Limited to try and top up the prize money if the tournament is to remain relevant in the continental scene.
The Open has been attracting professional golfers from various parts of the world because of the fact that it is the oldest in the series and the best organised and best covered by the media than any other event in the Challenge Tour.
“We are looking at all the possibilities of increasing the prize money in the near future in order for the Open to continue attracting the kind of players we are looking for," said tournament director Patrick Obath recently.
Because of the tour’s late start, the Kenyan event has been pushed to the first week of April. Going by the just released by the European Challenge Tour, the first event in 2015 will be the Medeira Island Open in Portugal from March 19 to 22.
This event is co-sanctioned by the main European Tour due to its high prize money of 600,000 Euros and it is followed in ranking by the Kazakhstan Open with a prize fund of 450,000 Euros.
KENYAN GOLFERS YET TO SHINE
The Tour grand finale in Dubai towards the end of the year will be the third biggest at 375,000 Euros. Both the Bank of Oman and the Shankai Open in China will this year be worth 350,000 Euros. So far, 23 events have been confirmed with five yet to be shortlisted.
The Kenya Open was last year won by South Africa’s Jake Roos who shot 10 under par 278 to take the first prize of 32,000 Euros (Sh3.3 million).
Greg Snow was the best-placed local at 10th place on six under par 282. No Kenyan golfer has ever won the event, where the closest the Kenyans have come to winning was a second place by Jacob Okello, who lost to Argentina’s Ricaldo Gonzalez in a sudden-death play-off at Muthaiga Golf Club in 1998.
