Kenya Open: Ngige drops to 22nd as Madoya's putt fails

Simon Ngige follows the progress of his shot his tee on Day Three of the 2019 Magical Kenya Open Golf Championship at Karen Golf Club on March 16, 2019. PHOTO | SILA KIPLAGAT |

What you need to know:

  • Starting the day on two under par, Ngige started off with a birdie at the first hole, picked up two more at the seventh having dropped shots at the fourth and fifth holes.

An awful triple bogey-seven at the last hole (18th) denied Kenya’s Simon Ngige a place on the leaderboard going into Sunday’s final round of the 2019 Magical Kenya Open golf tournament at the par 71 Karen Country Club course.

Starting the day on two under par, Ngige started off with a birdie at the first hole, picked up two more at the seventh having dropped shots at the fourth and fifth holes.

At the the back nine, Ngige made a birdie at the 11th, added an eagle at the 12th hole. He dropped a shot at the 14th but recovered two at the 16th and 17th and standing on the 18th tee, he was four under for the day and six under for the tournament.

He hit a fine driver to the centre of fairways, though pushed his approach shot to the right green bunker. “My intention was to just hit on the centre of the green and look for a par which was going to be good enough to put me onto the leaderboard. The ball was however seating badly so I had to try and bang it out at least for a five at the worse. I didn’t get it well so it dropped right back to the same place," said a disappointed Ngige.

Though he eventually came out, his first putt was not good enough as he dropped three shots, to finally sign for one under par 70 and a three rounds total of three under par 210 in 22nd place.

“Before we started the day, our game plan was to start with a birdie at the first hole which has been thorny over the past couple of days, which we did and there after we wanted to go easy, pick up a birdie where we are able but stay focused, until the awful seven at the 18th, but not to worry, we have the last round to play and we will stick to our game plan," added Ngige, who went straight to the practice putting green and later on to the driving range.

The other Kenyan, Justus Madoya shot one over par 72 for a three rounds total of one over par 214. Madoya, who blamed his poor putting for the day, was tying for 57th place at the close of the day.

“My game generally is fine though today I missed a number of short putts which actually denied me an under par score. I will try and see if I will be able to get some birdies in tomorrow’s final round as I really wanted to finish in the top 30 or so," said Madoya.

Meanwhile, for the first time in the history of the Kenya Open, a second cut was applied after the conclusion of the third round in order to reduce the field to 72 and ties, as it is usual the case in most of the European Tour events.

A total of 79 players had made the second cut hence the second one which was set at plus two. A total of 74 players, made it to Sunday’s final round, leaving five players who had posted three over and worse, missing the final round. This is different from previous Kenya Open Golf Championships where the cut was applied after the first two rounds to reduce the field to the top 60 players and ties.

Earlier in the week, the European Tour office had said: “In the event that the cut after two rounds qualifies more than 78 players for the third and fourth rounds, then there will be an additional cut after three rounds to the leading 72 professionals and those who tie for 72nd place. This third-round cut will not be implemented where circumstances dictate that there is no re-draw between rounds three and four.”

The second cut is a European Tour regulation to reduce the field to a manageable number to accommodate the demands of live TV come Sunday.