The Kenya Open returns to the Karen Country Club five years later. Its last visit was in 2021 and ended with a victory for Justin Harding with a two-shot lead over Kurt Kitayama. The name of the course comes from Karen Blixen, the Danish writer who wrote the book Out of Africa. Too obvious not to take advantage of it in the title.
But we are not going to travel to 2021, but a little further back. This particular treasure chest of memories is well kept in a house in Girona. In the house of Jordi García Pinto, the only Spaniard who has managed to win this tournament on this course. It happened in 2013.
The first feeling when looking back is almost one of unease. “How can it be that 13 years have already passed and at the same time I have the feeling that it happened in another life?” Jordi explains to Ten Golf on the other end of the phone. And indeed, many things have happened to García Pinto since he went from being a golf prodigy, one of the youngest to turn professional, to being established as one of the references in the DP World Tour structure.
He stopped competing in golf to ensure that the competition is as good and fair as possible. He has seen the bulls from the arena and sitting on the barrier. He understands the players better than anyone and also knows firsthand that it is almost never possible to please everyone with the decisions made. But we are here to talk about Kenya.
“To begin with, it was very different. At that time, it was the only trip made to Africa on the Challenge Tour (the tournament belonged to the second division at that time) and everything was very special. The practice range was a plot of about 150 metres long, no more, and it was located between holes 10 and 18. You hit against a net,” he assures.
Jordi has two very marked memories of that week. The first is that the first day of the tournament was Thursday, 14 February, his birthday. “My wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, asked the hotel to do something special for me, and they gave it to me two days later.” The next is that he recovered in a prodigious way. “I didn’t play very well that week, funny enough, but I made some spectacular recoveries. With the approach and the putt. That saved me. My playing partners couldn’t believe it,” he notes.
It was a week of machete. Literally. On hole 17, he ended up one of the days deep in the jungle, past the green. He doesn’t quite know how he managed to get the club in, hit it as best he could, and left the ball two fingers from the hole to make par. It’s just one example. “Like that, many,” he assures.
The last day he played for the victory in the tournament against the Dutchman Tim Sluiter and the friend of Peter Uihlein, that American who went everywhere with him, with whom he shared a room and who also played golf. Yes, the one named Brooks Koepka. “It’s curious because at that time he didn’t particularly stand out. Of course, he was very good because everyone there was, but really the one who had the fame, the one who stood out more was Uihlein. How life turns,” he points out. Koepka finished fifth in Kenya with a modest final round of 71 strokes, and Uihlein finished 22nd.
The key moment of the last round came on hole 15. “I remember I hit a bad shot from the tee. I hooked it to the left. I was lucky it hit a tree and came back to the fairway, but backwards. It lost about 50 metres and left me a second shot to the green of more than 200. I hit the 5-iron, the ball bounced about 30-40 metres before the green and ended up next to the hole. It was the shot of the tournament. With that birdie, I went four ahead with three to play, and yet I still ended up suffering…”
Jordi made two bogeys on 16 and 17 and went to the 18th with a two-shot lead over Sluiter. By then, Koepka had already conceded. Uihlein’s friend. The winner today of five Majors. What a sport this is. The 18th hole, a par 5, wasn’t easy either. He hit the drive a bit tight from the tee, and the second shot went past the green. The approach wasn’t apparently difficult, but the ball wasn’t well placed. His third shot didn’t even reach the green, and the situation was as follows: Sluiter had an eagle putt of about six metres, and Jordi had to make an approach and putt for par. Anything could happen…
“There was a lot of pressure, and the atmosphere was very cool. There was a lot of public, and I remember the president of Kenya accompanied us down the 18th fairway. They are very beautiful memories, although at that moment we suffered. Luckily, my approach was very good, I left the par made, and Tim missed the eagle putt,” he highlights. That’s how Jordi achieved the first of his two victories on the Challenge Tour.
Already at the trophy presentation ceremony, alongside the president of Kenya, he had the opportunity to read the winners’ plaque and that’s when he learned that the same Open had been won by players like Seve Ballesteros, Trevor Immelman, or José María Cañizares. Almost nothing. Pride is an understatement.
However, the only one who has won at Karen is Jordi García Pinto. Seve and Cañi won at Muthaiga.
These are his Out of Africa memories.
