TAKE 2 …THE KENYAN OPEN

Tour Diary

So the start of the season in Madeira never really got started, and it was ‘Take 2’ in Africa for the Barclays Kenya Open at Karen Golf and Country Club.

It was my third year back to Kenya and having previously had two decent weeks out there (50th, 25th) I was excited to get the chance to play again.

Kenya sure is an interesting place, you see parts of the world you never would expect to see, and hopefully the pictures I have taken will give you a little insight into what I’ve experienced in this part of Africa.

I started my journey in the early hours of last Monday morning, heading down to Heathrow for a direct flight to Nairobi. There is only a few hours’ time difference but an eight hour flight meant landing, sorting my visa, and heading straight to the hotel for some food and a good sleep!

Tuesday, Wednesday were practice and pro-am days and I managed to get some good work done despite limited practice facilities.

On Tuesday I played the Coca Cola pro-am and had a great day; my amateur partner Sanjeev Shah was great company and we had a really good laugh. He worked in the coffee industry and later in the week dropped off two bags of freshly ground coffee for myself and my room-mate George Woolgar! What a legend!!! Thanks Sanjeev!!

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So, after two days of preparation, I was ready to start the season where I left off in Madeira.

This year the course was playing a lot softer, it’s the back end of the ‘long’ rain season in Kenya and the fairways are really green. But somehow the greens are still pretty brown, very firm, and every green seems to play at a different speed – which makes it tricky as they go from extremely slow to crazy fast when you catch a bit with no grass on it!!

I sometimes think we don’t appreciate the quality of the machines we have in the UK and the money and resources we have to get courses up to tournament standard!

Anyway, round 1 and 2 I played pretty good, I shot 71, 69 for a -4 total and made the -2 two round cut pretty comfortably. I do quite like the course layout, it plays quite short, and you have to shape the ball both ways to get it into play.

But just to give you an idea of how the altitude of 1800m affects the ball: back home I hit a standard 6 iron 185 yards, in the cold that’s nearer 160 yards, but out in Kenya this week I’ve been carrying a 6 iron somewhere in the region of 210 yards … it really is tough to adjust and even tougher to commit when there is trouble surrounding the greens. But with it being my third year here I felt I was definitely getting to grips with it.

Round 3 and 4 really didn’t go to plan: in round 3 I managed to shoot -1 and keep around 30th on the leader board but I played poorly, and round 4 where I was hoping to press on up the board for my best finish in Africa, was a shocking display which led to a round of 75 and +3 to end the tournament again in 50th place on -2.

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It’s been a long week travelling and pretty gutting to finish the week the way I did, but on a positive note it’s the first event of the year on the Challenge Tour and it’s 4 rounds completed so there is definitely something to build on in Madrid in a week’s time!

But first I’ve got a week at home, have some fun with Laura and the girls and play with all Jess’s new birthday presents, as unfortunately I missed her 3rd birthday last Saturday!

I did not think I ever would say it but I’m actually excited to go and see Mr Tumble in the CBeebies concert this week, Jess’s face will be a picture!

Hope you’ve enjoyed another ‘life on tour’ blog.

Speak again soon.

A FEW RANDOM FACTS ON KENYA

Here are a few interesting or not so interesting bits of info you might find entertaining …

– police are some of the most corrupt in the world (so I’ve been told) – “You will never see a skinny police man”

– of all the Safari in Kenya there are no tigers (they are in Asia)

– when KFC opened two years ago in Kenya, people queued for 2 hours to eat!

– winter is July/August and the temp in the high ground can drop to 8 degrees

– a couple years ago you could pay £50 for five driving lessons and a guaranteed licence, and when you see the standard of driving you soon find that understandable.

– people with money have a LOT of money but most of Nairobi residents are on approx $100 dollars a month

– the caddies trebled their wage in the Kenyan Open as players have to pay them £18 a round plus a tip, and generally all your golf balls, gloves and any spare shirts you have!

Last modified: June 3, 2019