Last weekend was a golf weekend in Nairobi, with prominent golfers from Europe, America and Africa and local players competing in the Magical Kenya Open championship.
I have a few observations to make about this year’s event at the Muthaiga Golf Club.
First, the Vision 2030 Secretariat came up with a good initiative to financially support Kenyan professional golfers in their preparations.
The Secretariat came up with the plan of auctioning branding rights of players to corporates, inviting bidders to place adverts on players’ shirt, their caddies’ bib and also the caps.
The Magical Kenya Open by virtue of being a world tour means corporates who want visibility for their brands have access to millions of viewers by making the local players their brand ambassadors.
Though the Secretariat was already supporting golfers financially, the auction was just another platform to raise more money for them.
When it came to the execution of this good plan, the auction remained low-key with many corporates either avoiding it, not aware, or not interested.
So, the intended target of raising a substantial amount to support the Kenyan professional golfers wasn’t entirely met. The disappointing bit was that only a few days later, some corporates were signing sponsorship deals with some players.
Good initiative
Such a move simply undermines the good initiative that we should build on going forward. It also defeats logic because the amount they offered one player they signed up was what a prime space was going for at the auction, meaning at the price of one player they would have got brand visibility from all the Kenyan players.
Going forward, we hope to see more brands embracing the auction because it’s the best channel for them to support local players as well as other sports picking this auction model to raise money from branding rights.
Outside Nairobi
Second, organisers should consider hosting future Magical Kenya Open events outside Nairobi. The event attracts more than 150 golfers from all over the world and thousands of fans also show up.
The golfers and their fans will certainly relish the experience offered by other golf courses away from Karen or Muthaiga.
One option is Ridge’s 18 hole Baobab Course in Vipingo Ridge Kilifi. It is the only Professional Golfers Association-accredited course, basically meaning it’s a five-star golf course.
Apart from the golf course being PGA-accredited, the coastal side of Kenya can offer the an after-party experience for non-golfers and an opportunity to market Kenya’s coastal tourism.
Kenya can sell the experience for golfers and non-golfers at the Coast better than in Nairobi.
Consumption of Magical Kenya Open experience is largely not by Kenyans who depend on it to be held in Nairobi. This has been seen from the Magical Kenya Ladies Open that was successfully held last month.
Tourism experience
The fact that the Magical Kenya Open is watched by millions all over the world is a chance to market Kenya’s tourism.
Tanzania is already rolling out this plan after it was included in the European Tour Challenge and plans to host the event at Kili Golf — a golf with a tourism experience — in Kilimanjaro this year.
And this can’t end without mentioning the stunning display of golf from the 18-year-old Njoroge Kibugi.
On the second day, he shot an impressive -5 that saw him tied at position six against the top professional golfers in Europe. That was too surreal.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
