Billed as the future of Scottish professional golf and a potential Ryder Cup star, Robert MacIntyre will no doubt be among the star attractions at this year’s Magical Kenya Open slated for the Par 71 Muthaiga Golf course from March 9-12.
MacIntyre is a man with two European Tour titles, a pair of top 10s at the Open and career earnings of more than £5 million and will definitely attract spectator attention in the four-day 72-hole stroke-play event.
He claimed his first European Tour title at the Aphrodite Hills Cyprus Showdown in November 2020. With the final round cut to 19 players due to the knockout format of the event; MacIntyre’s final round of 64 was good enough to seal the victory and beat Masahiro Kawamura by one shot.
MacIntyre won his second European Tour event at the DS Automobiles Italian Open in September 2022 after he shot a final round of 64 to join Matt Fitzpatrick in a playoff. He won the playoff on the first extra hole with a birdie.
What’s more, MacIntyre was a joint runner-up in the 2019 Betfred British Masters, helped by an eagle-birdie finish.
He will be joined at Muthaiga by Spaniard Adrián Otaegui who plays on the European Tour, where he has won four times and also played in the inaugural LIV Golf Invitational Series.
Also in the star-studded mix is Frenchman Antoine Rozner from RCF la Boulie and South African Shaun Norris from Silver Lakes CC.
Rozner and Norris will grace Kenya’s premier championship as winners of the 2022 DP World Tour ranking tournaments with a prize fund of less than US$1.75 Million and the 2023 Race to Dubai ranking tournaments with a prize fund of less than US$2 million.
German Marcel Siem is also expected to captivate the Kenyan event having played on the Challenge Tour in 2021 and winning the Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge in July of that year.
In February 2023, Siem ended an eight-year win-less drought at the Hero Indian Open. He shot a final-round 68 to beat Yannik Paul by one shot.
Siem has represented Germany at the World Cup in 2003, 2004, and 2006. In 2006, he was Bernhard Langer’s teammate in the second-winning German team in the World Cup.
Kenya Open tournament director Patrick Obath described MacIntyre and Otaegui's entries as Godsend, adding that his presence in Kenya will create the much-needed zest and global attention.
“This year, because the prize money has moved from US$1.5m to about US$ 2m, we are going to expect a better quality of players coming to the tournament this year.”
“We have two players who are going to play in the Ryder Cup in Europe and if those players are choosing to play in the Magical Kenya Open, it means we have been able to attract good players.”
Obath also remarked that the placing of the Kenya open in the DP World Tour calendar coming immediately after the Hero Indian Open and prior to the South African event, will see tour pros going from India to South Africa, coming through Kenya.
“One of the things spectators should expect is that we have got a lot of good players coming in this year to play in the event,” Obath quipped.
Inchcape will provide a hole-in-one prize for this year’s event which will be a high-end vehicle to be confirmed soon, Obath added.
