Millicent Mello in action during a past event.

By DANIELLA APIYO

The Eldoret Club will play host to the ingoing KCB  Road To The Masters qualifying series event where golfers from the North Rift Region  will be fighting for the next six slots at stake for the upcoming KCB Karen Masters Pro-am.

The tournament is the third in the’ qualifying series that started in May at the Ruiru Sports Club.

The event is open to guests golfers and players from the clubs in the region which include are Eldoret, Kitale, Nandi, Kakamega and Mumias.

A field of over 150  golfers will fight for  slots to the Sunshine Tour sanctioned which was launched at Karen Country Club on Wednesday.

The  Karen Masters in its second edition will become the first Kenyan tournament to join the prestigious Sunshine Tour.

So far, a total of 12 players have qualified for this year’s Karen Masters Pro-am.

Christopher Kiai won the opening round of the Road To The Masters series while his namesake Christopher Young emerged the winner of the second round at the par 72 Limuru Golf and Country Club.

Playing off handicap 10, Limuru’s Young shot 22 in the front nine and 16 in the back for a total of 38 stableford points.

The five qualifying events have no doubt brought good tidings to local amateur golfers with the overall winner, men winner, lady winner, staff winner , the wildcard winner and guest winner get automatic qualification to the Masters.

The wild card ticket is being given to any of the following categories; best first nine, best second nine, nearest to the pin men and lady, junior golfer, longest drive lady and men, at the discretion of clubs.

The first batch of the six KCB Karen Masters Pro-am qualifiers from the opening leg in Ruiru were Christopher Kiai (overall winner), Michael Chege (men winner),  Veronica Mwaura (lady winner),George Felix (guest winner), Bernard Kotonya (sponsor winner),and nearest to the pin men winner Ben Njuguna. cheap air max mens cheap air max mens

KCB Group HR Manager Paul Russo,Tournament Director Andy Watt and Karen Club Chairman Lawrence Kiambi during the launch of KCB Karen Masters at Karen Golf Club.

By AMANDA DAMARIS

Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB)-sponsored Karen Masters Golf Tournament second edition slated for July 17 – 22 will run as a fully sanctioned Sunshine Tour event and with that comes a chance for four more Kenyans to join the tour.

Currently, only Stefan Andersen and one of the Kenyans who made the cut in this year’s Kenya Open Mohit Mediratta are participating in the Sunshine Tour. However, having the Karen Masters event as part of the tour has seen the organizers gift Kenya four more slot in the tour.

What stands between the golfers and the golden opportunity to play in the prestigious tour is the financial muscle to participate in the tour as most of the 20 legs of the tour are held in Southern Africa and most of the Kenya Professional golfers are self sponsored.

With the tour coming closer home to Karen Country Club, 32 local pros and four local amateurs will get a chance to fight for the Sh 15 million (150,000 usd) prize money against a field of more than 150 golfers.

“We are expecting a field of 156 golfers for the four day event. 100 of those will be drawn from the top ranking sunshine tour golfers, 32 slots will be filled by local professional golfers from Professional Golfers of Kenya (PGK) while 14 more slots will be filled by regional golfers invited by PGK. The remaining slots are for amateurs, four of whom will be locals,” explained tournament director Andy Watt.

PGK is currently holding a qualifier series dubbed ‘road to Karen’ that started in May 14 at the Vet Lab, won by Erick Ooko followed by a Sigona’s event won by CJ Wangai. The third of the five series event ended yesterday at Muthaiga and the final two will be played at Karen on June 25 and July 8.

The tournament will be preceded by a Pro-Am event on July 17 and 18 before the main event tees off on July 19. pandora charms uk pandora charms uk