Snow retains lead in Safari Tour at Karen

Greg Snow follows his shot at Karen Course [PHOTO: Maarufu Mohamed,Standard]

Muthaiga’s professional golfer Greg Snow collected a two under par 140 gross to lead in the second day of the final leg of the ongoing Safari Tour Golf Series at the par 72 Karen golf course in Nairobi.

The day one leader Snow yesterday returned an impressive one under 71 gross to add to his day one two under par 69 gross.

In the first nine, Snow played a bogey-free and picked birdies on the par-3-fourth, the par-5-sixth and par-4-ninth holes.

At the back nine, he struggled with a double-bogey on the par-4-13th hole followed by a bogey on the par-3 14th hole and another one at the par-4-18th hole but holed a solo birdie on the par-5-12th hole to lead the board.

“It’s still hard to tell the winner but I am working out hard and will see how things turns out,” said Snow.

Nyali’s elite amateur handicap plus two Daniel Nduva, who is also the 2018 Kenya Amateur Match Play champion, returned a score of one over par 72 gross for a level-par 142 gross to place him second.

“My round today but was not the best. I have not been hitting my irons as well as I should and I feel that has contributed to today’s performance,” said Nduva.

Mumias Sugar’s Dismas Indiza played a two-under 69 gross score to tie for the third spot with Kenya Air Force Club’s Kevin Mabele with a tournament total score after both returned a total score of 143 gross.

Twenty five players made the cut among them elite amateurs Edwin Mudanyi from Vet Lab, Vet Lab’s Mike Kisia, Railway’s Samuel Njoroge and South-African-based Nyali golfer Matthew Wahome.

Eight of the nine Kenyan professionals, who have qualified to play at this year’s Magical Kenya Open, made the cut, with Vet Lab’s Nelson Simwa being the exception.

The Karen’s leg of the Safari Tour series will offer three more players, outside the nine pros and six amateurs, who have already qualified to play at the 2019 Magical Kenya Open Golf championship qualification slots into this year’s tournament.

Jacob Okello, Justus Madoya, David Odhiambo and Ugandan Philip Kasozi are all in the hunt for the available final three slots.

Action for Round three of the Karen’s Safari Tour Series tees off today from 8 am in the tournament that is being sponsored by Magical Kenya and Barclays Bank of Kenya.

Meanwhile, Dustin Johnson moved up to second in the world rankings and closed on number one Justin Rose yesterday after winning his sixth WGC title in Mexico.

The 34-year-old American is now only 0.0064 average points adrift of fellow former US Open champion Rose as he bids to retake the top ranking, which he has held for 81 weeks in his career.

Johnson’s five-shot win over Rory McIlroy on Sunday made him only the fifth man in the last 50 years to reach 20 PGA Tour titles before the age of 35, after Tiger Woods, Tom Watson, Johnny Miller and Phil Mickelson.

Woods continued his rise up the rankings since returning to the sport last year following back surgery, moving up one place to 12th after finishing tied-10th in Mexico.