Money, money everywhere, but not a drop for Kenyans to drink!
USA's Justine Catlin follows the flight of his tee from hole one during the second round of the Magical Kenya Open at Muthaiga Golf Club in Nairobi on March 10, 2023.
What you need to know:
- To make any amount of money, the Professional golfers must make it past the first two rounds of play in this four-round competition. Players who miss the dread CUT after round two go home empty handed.
- So, from the 144 golfers who tee it up this week, only 65 will get to play into the weekend and make some money.
- All the best to the Kenyans!
This week, the Magical Kenya Open Golf Championship will be played at the Muthaiga Golf Club.
This championship is part of the DP World Tour that includes 44 events across 24 countries.
At the beginning of the current season, the DP World Tour announced a record total prize fund of 117 million Pounds Sterling (Sh20.9 billion).
The richest events on the 2024 calendar include the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, the Genesis Scottish Open, the BMW PGA Championship and the Abu Dhabi Championship which offer US$9m (Sh1.276Billion) each.
The DP World Tour Championship, the penultimate event of the season will offer a staggering total prize fund of $10m (Sh1.42Billion).
The winners of each tournament take home about 17 percent of the total prize fund.
You can do the math: the runner up gets 11 percent, third place gets 6.26 percent, fourth gets five percent, the 10th placed player gets two percent and the 65th player gets 0.24 percent - that small percentage translates to Sh3.41 million at the DP World Tour Championship. Not bad at all!
The total prize money offered at the Kenya Open since 1991 is approximately 10.8 million Euros (Sh1.6 billion), of which approximately 126,310 Euros (Sh19.3 million) has been claimed by Kenyan players (about 1.17 percent).
In the last three years, the Magical Kenya Open has offered a combined prize fund of 4.75 million Euros (Sh724.4 million) of which Kenyans have claimed 6,144 Euros (Sh0.94 million) or 0.13 percent.
This week, the total prize fund of the Magical Kenya Open is $2.5 million (Sh355 million) and the winner will take home nearly Sh60 million!!!
The second placed player will bank Sh38.8 million, third player wins Sh22.2 million, fourth wins Sh17.7 million and fifth takes Sh15 million.
To make any amount of money, the Professional golfers must make it past the first two rounds of play in this four-round competition. Players who miss the dread CUT after round two go home empty handed.
So, from the 144 golfers who tee it up this week, only 65 will get to play into the weekend and make some money.
All the best to the Kenyans!
Gacheru is a Director at IMG Kenya
