Vet Lab hosts final leg of Kenya Airways Series

All is set for the 2014/2015 Kenya Airways Golf Safari Series final leg at Vet Lab Sports Club this weekend.

More than 2,000 players from 35 clubs in the country have so far taken part in the series, which had 15 events.

This particular event at Vet Lab, also know as “Kabete’’, was to take place on January 3, but had to be pushed back due to the congested programme in the series. It is the fifth event where the Kenyan professionals have been included to prepare for this year’s Barclays Kenya Open scheduled for April 9 to 12 at Karen Country Club.

The local pros played their first event at Nakuru on January 17 followed by the second at Sigona on January 31, while their third and fourth events were staged at Karen and Royal Nairobi Golf Clubs last month.

Local pro Richard Ainley claimed the Nakuru event while winning at Sigona was also local based John Wangai who is also the captain of the Kenya Professional Golfers of Kenya (PGK).

PALCED THIRD

Windsor’s Riz Charania clinched the third leg at Karen while during the fourth event at Royal, Thika Sports Club’s Simon Ngige fired rounds of 71, 68, 68 for total of nine under par 207 to win by two shots from Royal’s Ken Abuto while Wangai was placed third.

This week, a field of 36 will battle it out for a share of the Sh240,000 set for the top eight pros after two rounds. The field includes long-hitting and Mumias-based Dismas Indiza, who has so far played only one event in the series.

He missed the Sigona, Karen and Royal due to a three-event suspension and he is now all set to challenge Ainley, Charania, Wangai and Ngige.

On the amateur side, a field of 200 golfers will be converging on the6,848-yard long par 72 course during the weekend to try and grab the six Kenya Airways return tickets and three slots in the grand finale set for the most magnificent Windsor Golf Hotel and Country Club course on March 28.

Internationally, the last leg will take place at Lusaka Golf Club Zambia on March 19 from where the winner will join the rest at Windsor for the grand finale.

The 2014/2015 Kenya Airways Golf Safari started at Kenya Railway Golf Club on November 1 last year and made its way to across all the regions in the country.

INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT

The international circuit saw events taking place in Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Hong Kong, Guangzhou China, Tanzania, Uganda, Thailand, Seychelles, Ethiopia, South Africa and the last one in Zambia.

Speaking recently in Nairobi, Kenya Airways CEO Mbuvi Ngunze said that the Golf Safari was designed to promote Kenya as a top golf tourism destination with the country eager to tap into the $2 billion-a-year golf tourism market.

Ngunze saidan estimated 80 million golfers play on close to 40,000 courses across the globe. Golf events are said to be worth close to $2 billion a year, and the golf tourism market something more than $1 billion.

“If we can capture at least a quarter of this income generated by golf tourism in Kenya, we will be way ahead of many countries in the world. We have the some of the best golf facilities in Africa and we should take advantage of that,” said Ngunze.