It’s time for one of my favorite events of not only the DP World Tour, but the entire golfing world in the Magical Kenya Open.
Following a week off, the DP World Tour turns its attention to the Muthaiga Golf Club in Nairobi, Kenya for the first of three stops in Africa to complete the International Swing.
This event has been in existence since 1967. It was a mainstay of the Challenge Tour beginning in 1991.
The Magical Kenya Open has now been a part of the DP World Tour since 2019 as this year marks the sixth playing, as the 2020 edition was canceled due to the pandemic.
The first two installments of this event were played at the Karen Golf Course, also in Nairobi, before moving to its new home at the Muthaiga Golf Club in 2022. This will be the fourth consecutive year the event is to be played at Muthaiga.
The Field
Recent Commercial Bank Qatar Masters Champion Haotong Li will help headline this week’s field as he tees it up following his first DP World Tour title since 2022.
Li will be joined by Ryggs Johnston and John Parry as winners on the season looking to capture their second victory.
Darius Van Driel comes in as the defending champion as he held off Spain’s Nacho Elvira and England’s Joe Dean by two strokes a season ago to claim his maiden DP World Tour title. Both Elvira and Dean will also be back this year, looking to better their finish from a season ago.
Other notable names teeing it up this week include Angel Hidalgo, Guido Migliozzi, Sebastian Soderberg and Adrian Otaegui.
Former LIV Golf member Eugenio Chacarra is grabbing attention as he received a tournament invitation. The 24-year-old Spaniard will now look to begin his journey in working towards his first PGA Tour card.
Former winners of this event teeing it up this week include Van Driel (2024,) Jorge Campillo (2023,) Ashun Wu (2022,) Justin Harding (2021) and Migliozzi (2019.)
The Course
Muthaiga Golf Club sits to the north of Nairobi along the edge of the Karura Forest.
Throughout the playing, golfers will get the chance to be greeted by many of the surrounding wildlife that has, over the years, offered many iconic pictures.
It is a parkland style course that offers a different challenge than golfers on the DP World Tour are used to.
It plays at around 7,228 yards and is a par 71.
The front-nine, in comparison to the back-nine, plays much longer and is designed to test golfers right out of the gate.
The front-nine is also laid out across undulating terrain as the back nine is routed around several man-made lakes.
There are four par fives on the course, so the opportunity to score low here is there. Since its move to the DP World Tour, the winning scores have been -16, -18 and -14.
Like the Karen Country Club, the previous host of the event, altitude will be a big factor this week and must be taken into consideration.
The course is tree lined and requires an accurate shot off the tee. The course too has water in play on multiple holes and features a large amount of bunkers.
Muthaiga Golf Club underwent a renovation in 2004-05 headed by Peter Matkovich where the greens were changed to the familiar bentgrass.
This is the year that the par three 13th, the signature hole of the course, was placed over water.
The Weather
As of the time of writing this, the weather for this week looks completely clear. There is a zero-percent chance of precipitation across all four days this week. Winds will begin at 12 miles-per-hour for both Thursday and Friday. They’ll increase to 14 miles-per-hour for Saturday before peaking at 16 miles-per-hour for Sunday. Temperatures will be the highest on Thursday at 85-degrees before slowly decreasing to 82-degrees come Sunday.
Key Stats
Strokes Gained: Approach (SG: APP)
Strokes Gained: Tee to Green (SG: TTG)
Driving Accuracy
Strokes Gained: Putting (SG: PUTT)
Scrambling
Greens in Regulation Percentage (GIR%)
Betting Card
Adrien Saddier (+3300)
Saddier is becoming a mainstay on my DP World Tour betting cards and that’s for good reason. He is currently 12th on Tour in driving accuracy, 13th in SG: TTG, 34th in SG: APP, 41st in scrambling, 74th in GIR% and 94th in SG: PUTT. We last saw Saddier two weeks ago at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters where he placed 35th. Prior to that he placed 13th at the Ras Al Khaimah Championship and earlier in the season placed 11th at the ISPS HANDA Australian Open and 34th at the BMW Australian PGA Championship. Saddier has played this event in each of the last three seasons at the Muthaiga Golf Club. He placed T23rd last season, 47th in 2023 and 51st in 2022.
Marcel Schneider (+5000)
Schneider has been playing some great golf as of late, placing 14th at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters in his last outing and eighth at the Bahrain Championship prior to that. He also placed 15th at the Alfred Dunhill Championship earlier this season. He also played this event last season, finishing T23rd. He did play here in 2022 where he missed the cut. Schneider is currently 20th on Tour in GIR%, 28th in SG: TTG, 32nd in SG: PUTT, 38th in SG: APP, 58th in driving accuracy and 102nd in scrambling.
Martin Couvra (+7500)
Couvra is currently eighth on Tour in SG: APP, 12th in SG: TTG, 29th in driving accuracy, 39th in SG: PUTT, 44th in GIR% and 98th in scrambling. He’s been boom-or-bust in each of the five tournaments he’s played this season. He missed the cut in two of them but in the three he made the cut, he placed in the top seven in each of them. He placed fifth two weeks back at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters, fourth at the Bahrain Championship and seventh at the Alfred Dunhill Championship. He will be making his tournament and course debut this week.
Matthew Southgate (+9000)
I absolutely love Southgate this week. He last played at the Bahrain Championship where he missed the cut but prior to that, placed top 22 in each of his first four starts. He placed 15th at the BMW Australian PGA Championship, 20th at the ISPS HANDA Australian Open, 11th at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and 22nd at the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open. Southgate is currently second on Tour in driving accuracy, fifth in GIR%, 12th in SG: APP, 24th in scrambling, 33rd in SG: PUTT and 41st in SG: TTG. In other words, he’s well above average in each of the six statistical categories I took into consideration this week.
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