The Sunshine Golf Tour has been launched in Kenya with the qualifying events scheduled March 30th-April 2nd 2025 at Windsor Golf and Country Club.
The qualifying event,Q-school will be held over the four days with prize money of Ksh.1M being set aside for the winners.
“Ordinarily Q-Schools don’t offer Prize money, but we made a decision at IMG Kenya to kick start the Tour with an incentive for the professional golfers,” IMG CEO Peter Gacheru said.
The ‘Q-School’ is a mandatory pre-requisite for earning OWGR points on the Kenyan Sunshine tour dubbed ‘East Africa Swing’.
Top 10 players after the qualifying event will land invitation to the tournaments final qualifiers scheduled April 8th-11th in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The South Africa-based Sunshine Tour signed a three-year contract with IMG, a Kenyan marketing agency which will operationalize the golf tour in the region.
The tournament offers professional golfers and elite amateurs, both men and women, a chance to play regular competitive golf tournaments organized in line with Sunshine Tour standards.
“We are very pleased to be partnering with The Sunshine Tour of South Africa to bring The Sunshine Development Tour – East African Swing to the region. It is our conviction that this Tour will offer golfers the much-needed platform to play consistent and competitive golf to an ever-increasing standard, whilst providing them with a steady revenue stream’’, Peter Gacheru Said.
“Our objective is to enhance the quality of professional golf in Kenya and the region, provide elite amateurs and juniors with a development pad, and elevate our profile as a golfing community on the global stage.
“We believe that, through this tour, our local and regional golf landscape will be transformed to produce globally acclaimed golf champions whilst providing a development pipeline for future talent,” he said.
“We look forward to joining hands with other like-minded partners to grow this event to make it bigger, more sustainable, and more impactful for the present and future of golf in the region,” he added.
The Tour will include 10 to 15 events annually and will deliver Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points, which are crucial for player advancement, providing local professional golfers with a genuine merit-based “pathway” into global golf.
OWGR points are also crucial for qualification to the Olympic Games.
Commenting on the deal, Sunshine Tour Commissioner, Thomas Abt, said:
“The launch of the Sunshine Development Tour is a significant moment for golf in Africa as we are able to create unrivalled opportunities for professional golfers and the top amateurs in East Africa. We now have an effective vehicle to unearth the talent on the continent and bring new stars to the game.
“The Sunshine Tour and Sunshine Ladies Tour have effective global pathways in place that are perfectly suited to the development of talent in Africa.
“We look forward to launching the Sunshine Development Tour in what is a milestone moment for the game in Africa, and one in which we can play an important role in the growth of golf here.”
