The Ivory Coast Open or Open de Côte d'Ivoire was a

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

tournament in the

Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is ...

. It was founded in 1980, and was an event on the

Safari Circuit The Safari Circuit, or Safari Tour, was a small professional golf tour based in West and East Africa that ran from the 1970s through into the 1990s. From 1977, the tour was organised by the PGA European Tour and from 1991 the tournaments were inclu ...

the following year. It was an event on the European-based

Challenge Tour The Challenge Tour is the second-tier men's professional golf tour in Europe. It is operated by the PGA European Tour and, as with on the main European Tour and the European Senior Tour, some of the events are played outside Europe. History The ...

schedule in 1990 and 1991, and from 1996 to 1999. It has been held at President Golf Club,

Yamoussoukro Yamoussoukro (; , locally ) is the ''de jure'' capital of Ivory Coast and an autonomous district. As of the 2014 census, Yamoussoukro is the fifth most populous city in Ivory Coast with a population of 212,670. Located north-west of Abidjan, th ...

and Ivoire Golf Club,

Abidjan Abidjan ( , ; N'Ko script, N’ko: ߊߓߌߖߊ߲߬) is the economic capital of the Ivory Coast. As of the Demographics of Ivory Coast, 2021 census, Abidjan's population was 6.3 million, which is 21.5 percent of overall population of the country, ...

. The title has been won by some of the world's top golfers, including

Vijay Singh Vijay Singh ( hif, विजय सिंह ; born 22 February 1963), nicknamed "The Big Fijian", is a Fijian professional golfer. He has won 34 events on the PGA Tour, including three major championships: one Masters title (2000) and two ...

Ian Poulter Ian James Poulter (born 10 January 1976) is an English professional golfer who plays in the LIV Golf League. He has previously been ranked as high as number 5 in the world rankings. The highlights of Poulter's career to date have been his two W ...

, and

Gary Player Gary James Player DMS, OIG (born 1 November 1935) is a South African retired professional golfer who is widely considered to be one of the greatest golfers of all time. During his career, Player won nine major championships on the regular tou ...

. The most successful player is

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

's Gordon J. Brand, who recorded three victories between 1981 and 1988.Challenge in the Ivory Coast
European Tour, 13 April 1999 The tournament was revived in 2017 after an 18-year hiatus and was won by the Ghanaian golfer Vincent Torgah.

History

The first event in 1980 was to inaugurate the President Golf Club,

. It was an invitation event with 27 professionals competing. Yamoussoukro was the birthplace of the President,

Félix Houphouët-Boigny Félix Houphouët-Boigny (; 18 October 1905 – 7 December 1993), affectionately called Papa Houphouët or Le Vieux ("The Old One"), was the first president of Ivory Coast, serving from 1960 until his death in 1993. A tribal chief, he wo ...

, who attended the event.

and Peter Townsend tied at 265, 23 under par and nine strokes ahead of the rest of the field. Townsend was bunkered on the first playoff hole and took a bogey 5 to Player's par 4. In 1981 the event became the Ivory Coast Open and was added to the Safari Circuit schedule. It was won by Gordon J. Brand, who beat Martin Poxon at the first hole of a sudden-death playoff, after the two had tied on 271.

Winners

:''This list is incomplete. The 1999 event was advertised as the 18th edition.''

Notes

References

{{reflist

External links

Coverage on the Challenge Tour's official site
Former Challenge Tour events Safari Circuit events Golf in Ivory Coast Sport in Abidjan Sport in Yamoussoukro Recurring sporting events established in 1980