The Open 2011
The Open Golf Championships returned to The Royal St George’s Golf Club in Sandwich, Kent in July 2011.
The Open is the largest annual single sport event in the UK and attracted approximately 200,000 spectators over the four days. It was an opportunity for people of Kent to see world class Golfers such as Rory Mcllroy and Tom Watson at a world class venue with excellent vantage points to view the Golf from numerous stands.
Golf Clubs across Kent offered free ’Golf taster sessions’ for the general public and 20 young people were selected to be Young Golf Ambassadors (pdf) to support all of this activity. These Kent Golf Young Ambassadors will continue as sports leaders in the community beyond the Championship.
In the ‘Welcome to Kent’ marquee, Kent County Council operated a Golf simulator, on which the general public attempted to hit their shots as close to the hole as possible, with voluntary financial contributions invited to go to the Kent Trust for Youth Sport.
A total of £816 was raised and a cheque for that amount has been presented to Tony Monteuuis, the Chairman of the Kent Trust for Youth Sport by the staff of the KCC’s Sport, Leisure and Olympics service.
Southeastern trains ran the High Speed trains to Sandwich for the duration of the event, and helped the case for enhanced high speed links from East Kent to London in the future.
Kent County Council has worked with the Kent Golf Partnership to create a Golf Legacy programme, which has attracted funding from the Royal and Ancient Golf Club. So far, through this programme, 20 Golf clubs and 600 people have been engaged in 15 Golf competitions for adults, juniors and disabled people.
Kent has a growing reputation for accommodating world level sports events, after accommodating the Tour de France in 2007, the World Cup Archery, The Open in 2003 and again in 2011 and with the Paralympic Road Cycling to come in 2012.
