How Irishman conjured up new, magical Vipingo golf course

Northern Ireland's David Jones, a 1989 Kenya Open champion, designed the PGA Baobab Golf Course which hosted the inaugural Magical Kenya Ladies Open last month.

Besides the Baobab course at Vipingo, Jones also designed the Kiligolf in Arusha, Tanzania, and one of the top golf courses in Turkey among many other golf courses.

Golf writer Larry Ngala caught up with Jones when he visited Kenya to attend the ladies tournament and below are excerpts from the interaction:

Question: You played golf here as a professional golfer and won the Kenya Open. You’ve obviously seen the standard of golf courses develop in this country. What are your thoughts on that?

Answer: The first time I came to Kenya was 1970 — 50 years in a few months’ time!

I came to play the Kenya Open, which was then part of what we knew as the Safari Tour and still, kind of, going along. I just fell in love with Kenya. And at that time, Kenya, and still to this day, has a nucleolus of what I would call legacy golf courses.

You know, the ones that were built in the old colonial days but have really caught the imagination in Kenya with Kenyans who have learnt to play golf, enjoyed the game and so on. Places like Karen, Muthaiga, Nyali, Sigona, Limuru - these are great courses.

And there are dozens more that are still going, small courses out in the country.

They might not be in fantastic condition, they do not have a lot of people, but they are still giving pleasure and people are still enjoying them.

So, since those days, we have started to see Kenya kind of getting a bit of a name as a more exotic golf destination.

So, we have Leisure Lodge, we have had Windsor, Great Rift Valley and now, Vipingo Ridge.

And, you know, that is something that the country can build on.

Becoming a golf destination is a long-term aspiration and you need a nucleolus of what I would call international standard courses and you definitely have a few.

We still have a way to go to get a coordinated tour going but we are well on that way.

Q. We talk about golf tourism globally with many people travelling to events. What more do we need to do to get a piece of this pie?

A. We are here at the Magical Kenya Open for ladies. We have had the Magical Kenya Open for men back in Karen in March.

This is a good start.

When you are live on TV worldwide and around the continent of Africa and Europe and you are reaching hundreds of millions of homes, people are looking at these pictures and going “wow!, this looks really spectacular!”

Because Kenya has had its share of bad publicity over the years and suddenly here is a real feel-good story: women who play great golf on a lovely golf course. So, that sort of captures the imagination.

To me, the Ministry of Tourism and the sporting powers-that-be need to get behind this idea.

I get it, golf is a bit of an elite sport, but at grassroots, it isn’t.

I mean, I am Irish and when I started playing golf in Ireland in the ‘50s and ‘60s as a kid in short trousers, it was thought to be an elite sport there.

But, now, it is a sport for everybody.

When Seve Ballesteros started in Spain, it was an elite sport there.

top-notch Vipingo Now, it is a sport for everybody.

Kenya can be the same. We need to grow the game, we need to spread the word that this is something that you don’t have to be a millionaire to aspire to play golf.

And more importantly, millions or certainly hundreds of thousands of keen golfers around the world are always looking for new destinations and experiences.

They are going to come to Kenya, they are going to spend money, they are going to grow the game, they are going to give these courses, including the legacy courses, income they can use for junior programmes to try and get Kenya be able to field Olympic teams of men and women.

You know, the world is Kenya’s oyster but it needs more coordination at a political level.

Q. Let’s talk about Vipingo. You’ve been here since the beginning which is slightly over ten years now. From the sisal plantation to what we now see, take us through that. What did it take to deliver the vision here?

A. When I came here first it was really through my good friend Salim Haji who is a golf pro himself.

We had played a little bit of golf at the Kenya Open and so on.

And his friend, Alastair Cavenagh, now Chairman of the Club, said do a bit of a feasibility study for me; could we have a golf course here?

And Salim said, “Let’s get Jonesy, he is into golf course design, he knows Kenya, he’s got a lot of friends here, he has been coming here forever, he has won a Kenyan tournament.”

So, I came down had a look and said yes.

To be honest, the site wasn’t promising in those days it was just a sisal estate but I said to them that if we get the investment, we have the imagination and avoided the dreaded words jua kali, we can create something really special here.

To be fair to them, they put their money where their mouths were, and they invested.

And this is what we have. You know, this is doable everywhere with commitment.

So that was actually in 2004 when we first looked at it.

And we started this kind of self-build, we got a very good shaper from the States, we got a very good greenkeeper from Germany – we brought a few guys in and Salim basically project-managed the whole thing.

It was just a pole pole thing where we worked away and the guys then launched it and got some money from real estate sales.

So, it just built and built and as it built, people kind of got the feel of “Hey! This place looks good.”

And so, people started to buy and that is how it came to be.

Q. Looking at the results over the last rounds, is this golf course doing what you designed it to do?

A. Absolutely. With any golf course, you have got to test the pros but you have got to make it enjoyable for everybody.

So, if you are a lady or a senior golfer or a high handicapper, there is no good coming to a course that is built for the top pros because it will be too long.

You’ve got to have lots of tees, you’ve got to have a little bit of forgiveness in the way the course plays and that means when the pros come, if they are right on their game, they are going to produce good scores.

I love to see that.

These women have been superb.

The quality of play has been fantastic - we have got three 66s and 67s.

And we have seen high scores as well, but it shows you that if you are on your game and you have a feeling for these greens, you can score.

If you make mistakes, it will punish you. And that is the same for everybody.

You don’t want to have a wide-open field that is no challenge, equally you don’t want to have something you are going to lose a dozen balls every time you play.

I think we have the right balance here.

Q. What is the key to going low on this golf course?

A. Pick your risks. There is a half-dozen holes out there where the risk versus reward element is high, but over a four-round tournament, you cannot afford to run a double or a triple.

Play your way in, get to know the course, if you’ve got water there, be a little careful and stay away from the water – there is plenty of birdie opportunities out there.

If you just think, particularly on those risk versus reward holes, don’t take too many chances.

Q. Anything else you would like to add?

A. It’s been one of the best opportunities of my life to come back to the country I love and do this.

People are paying me wonderful compliments, which is very gratifying, and I am getting a lot of the credit for this while there is a huge team effort going on in the background and they are the guys that deserve the real credit.

Q. Does it give you great joy to see great golfers playing on the course that you designed?

A. Absolutely! I love it.

This is the third, maybe the fourth, of the courses that I have done around the world that have hosted national opens