Ooko sharpening his game ahead of Kenya Open

After blowing hot and cold at the start of the Safari Tour golf series, which was the qualifying tournament to this year’s Magical Kenya Open, Erick Ooko gained momentum to book a place at the Open and subsequently newly introduced his momentum back when action tees off at Sigona Golf Club on Sunday.

Ooko began the series on a low, missing cut by three shots at the Limuru course. He had 'home' advantage at Royal, being his former home course. He finished fourth after four rounds of golf, having tied top on the second round. At VetLab, he missed cut by one shot.

He, however, recovered from the fourth leg played at Sigona Golf course and kept it steady to pick points at the remaining six events, including at the Uganda Open for a sixth-place finish in the order of merit at the end of the series which was concluded at Karen Country Club.

“I am back on the Karen course for practice and I intend to keep at it for the next 20 days. For now, there is nothing much I can change about my game so I am working on improving my shots, putting and chipping,” said Ooko.

He continued, “At the start of the series I struggled a bit with my game but I was never worried about qualification. In Limuru I was not yet settled, having just lost my father. At Royal, it felt like I was playing home since I had just left the club for Golf Park in March 2020. At Vet Lab, I had a bad first round where I ended up carding eight over par but recovered to play par on the second round. However, it was not good enough to make cut.”

Ooko, however, recovered at the firth leg with good swings at a course he terms as his favourite to pick 45.3 points and was unstoppable going forward. He picked 174 points from the nine events with an additional 78.9 from the 2018/19 and 2019/20 seasons that were counting for 30 percent of the qualification points.