Michiel Bothma hoping to retain Barclays Kenya Open title this week on the Challenge Tour
Challenge Tour will be returning to its latest edition, The Barclays Kenya Open this week with South Africa’s Michiel Bothma returning to defend his title he won last year.
This will be the third event on the Challenge Tour calendar where the aspiring golfers will be pitched to land the title and soar up the money list.
Bothma won the last year’s event, taking over his younger cousin Branden Grace, who finished for the joint third. Grace went over to win his European Tour card via the qualifying rounds and clinched back-to-back titles on the tour earlier in the year.
Bothma will be relieved not to have his younger cousin on the field this week and has strong chances of retaining the title.
He said, “I was ecstatic that week. Kenya almost feels like home to me. I have friends there and there are normally a lot of South Africans. You never know when your first win on any tour will come, and leading up to the event I really started playing well.
I also worked very hard prior to it. Instead of taking a break, I didn’t stop from the year before”.
Bothma did well last year, finishing 45th on the Challenge Tour rankings and is hoping to improve his position on his favourite hunting ground, the Muthaiga Golf Club on the outskirts of Nairobi.
He added, “After the second day I really felt like I was hitting it well and I was going to win. After that week I thought it would be a great year, but it just didn’t happen”.
Some of the top-ranked players on the Challenge Tour will be returning to bid for the title including Germany’s Maximilian Kieffer and Englishman Phil Archer, both of whom have won the opening events on the tour the Gujurat Kensville Challenge in India and
the Pacific Rubiales Colombia Classic respectively.
Chris Lloyd will also be part of the field who has pulled in impressive finishes so far on the tour.
England’s Nick Dougherty along with Danish duo Morten Ørum Madsen and Andreas Hartø will also be part of the field, making the event more competitive for Bothma.
Barclays Kenya Open has a winner’s prize share of €190,000.
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