Greg Snow will be the star attraction in the second 2020/21 Safari Tour Golf Series event which gets underway at Royal Nairobi Golf Club today through Thursday.
The event has attracted a bumper entry of over 50 golfers with leading players gunning for European Tour Magical Kenya Open slots.
Snow, who leads the series with 136.7 points has been drawn in Game 20 with Windsor professional David Opati aka Par 3 and Boniface Koskey. The trio will be the last group off the first tee of Kenya’s oldest golf course at 12:10pm.
All golfers will start off from the first tee. Leading the foreigners is Ugandan Philip Kasozi who is drawn in Game 8 with homeboy Kennedy Abuto and Boniface Simwa.
Kasozi is no stranger on Kenyan courses having played in the series in the past two seasons and will be hoping to rack up a slot for his country Uganda.
Eric Ooko of Golf Park is lined up in Game 19 with Golf Park stablemate David Wakhu and Joseph Karanja. Ooko is one of the players who qualified for the Kenya Open last year but has since been compelled to return to the course in a bid to get his mitts on the 2021 slot.
The Safari Tour, which is the ‘Road to Kenya Open’ for regional players, has also attracted leading single handicap amateurs among them Mutahi Kibugi, Taimur Malik and deaf golfer Issac Makokha, who recently won the Kenya Amateur Matchplay Championship at Vet Lab.
Taimur, who has played for Windsor and Muthaiga at the Tannahill Shield event, is drawn in Game 11 alongside John Mukundi and Shem Orwenyo.
Naomi Wafula, the leading lady golfer, is also in the mix and will tee it up in Game 12 with Edwin Asuza and Railway resident professional Alfred Nandwa.
Wafula was among those who played in the historic Ladies European Tour at Vipingo Ridge last year.
Wakhu, who was the day one leader at Limuru said: “Playing back-to-back events will help pros play good golf. At moment I’m also practicing hard to stay in great shape so as to maintain top form for lower under par scores.”
With the cancellation of the 2020 Magical Kenya Open, organisers Kenya Open Golf Limited (KOGL) started the new season at Limuru Country Club course last week with qualifying scores.
In the new format, KOGL confirmed that they will take 10 per cent of 2018-2019 scores and 20 per cent of the 2019-2020 and 70 per cent of 2020-2021 scores. Those who qualified last season still have some points going into the new season.