Guardian

At the commencement of the 2012 season, nothing suggested the year was going to be a historic one for professional golf in Nigeria. But as the season approached a familiar end, a spirited effort by a single organisation midwifed what ended up being a historic event in the annals of professional golf. Sadly, while Nigerian pros, who have been bereft of tournaments, saw four fall on their laps with mouth-watering winning purses within a month, they fell flat in the contests, winning only one out of the four. With sponsoring firm, Globacom Nigeria, still basking in the euphoria of a successful outing, ENO-ABASI SUNDAY, reports that sponsorships like this have the capacity to change professional golf in the country.

AFTER giving series of support to some golf tournaments in different parts of the country, telecommunications giant, Globacom Nigeria Limited, elected to do something momentous in 2012. It sponsored that year‘s President Cup Golf Championship at the IBB Golf and Country Club, Abuja.

By its admission, the successful partnership with the Nigerian Golf Federation (NGF) to sponsor the President Cup Golf Tournament last year made significant impact on the game of golf, giving pep to the country’s top golfers, who saw a true commitment from the private sector           .

Against this background, the Commercial Director of the outfit, Folu Aderebigbe, said the firm  was impressed with the entire organisation of the event, and was stimulated to make more investment in golf sponsorship across the country.

This development gave birth to the Glo Golf Tour West Africa 2012.

The tour, which teed off on Thursday November 8, 2012, became the biggest golf tour in West Africa, attracting top professional and Category One amateur golfers in the sub region and beyond. It also contributed more than 40 per cent of the N150 million combined winning purse so far shared in the tour this season.                      .

Originally, it was conceived to be a five-legged tour, but a fully packed schedule at the Ibom Golf Club, Le Meridien Ibom Hotel and Golf Resort, Uruan, Akwa Ibom State narrowed the maiden edition to four events. That shortfall did not in any way detract from the success of the debut edition, which saw the creme-de-la-creme of West African professional golfers tradeswings

Among other things, the tour opened the eyes of followers of professional golf to a number of pertinent issues. These include the fact that there are still firms willing to assist government develop sports in the country if the right steps were taken.

The tour, with it’s N62.5 million total prize money also showed that with a number of firms taking this kind of initiative, committed Nigerian professionals can live comfortably off their career earning   s like their American and European colleagues.

Thirdly, during the tour, it became evident that though many pro golf tours in West African states were not as developed as that of Nigeria, their pro golfers were capable of challenging their Nigerian counterparts and getting away with it.

Sadly also, the tour also revealed the weakness of most Nigerian pros, questioning their work ethics, their determination to succeed in the face of stiff competition as well as the lack of strong mental alertness and ability to fight back with gusto after losing grounds.

Ibori Golf and Country Club, Asaba, had the honour of hosting the first leg of the tour from November 8 with over 90 professional players including Ghana and Nigeria’s number one, Emos Korblah, Cameroun’s number one, Ebela Desire and Senegal’s number six golfer, ...being on parade.

At the need of the day, Ghana’s Vincent Torgah won that leg carting home over N2m from the N15 million winning purse. The second leg of the tour held at the Blue Elephant Cement Club, Sagamu from November 14 to 17. And after a keen contest, former Nigeria’ number one player, Oche Andrew Odoh conquered other contenders emerging winner in the contest, which winning purse was N10m.

Korblah, who had earlier impressed in the first two outings finishing inside the first four had his way by winning the N15m Abuja event, which held at the IBB Golf and Country Club, Abuja.

Not one to allow golden opportunities slip past carelessly, Korblah re-strategised for the grand finale at the Otukpo Golf and Country Club, Otukpo, Benue State. At the end of proceedings, he led the pack of Ghanaian players that silenced their Nigerian counterparts at the grand finale.  The strong finish saw Ghanaian golfers place first, second and fourth. In that encounter, Korblah, overtook compatriot Vincent Torgah in the third round and maintained the lead finished with -5 under par having amassed a combined score of 283. He earned a princely N2.7.                      .

Vincent, who finished second with -4 went home with N1.5m while Nigeria’s Edet Umoh, who finished third with +4 over par earned N1.2m for his effort.

The third Ghanaian in the first 10, Ghenyor A., finished in 4th place while Cameroun’s Ebela finished in fifth position.

Interestingly, Korblah, a highly ambitious 49-year-old was not only eyeing a sizeable chunk of the N62.5m winning purse, he was also interested in winning the hole-in-one prize, a brand new Toyota Corolla car, as he revealed ahead of the Abuja event that he was ready to clinch the special prize.

Apart from the N62.5m prize morning, The Guardian gathered that Globacom spent more than N100m to stage the tourney in which a car, motor bikes, refrigerators, microwave ovens, DVD players, golf kits, clippers and hairdryers among others were won by 24 amateur players, who emerged from different categories.                .

What looked like the icing on the cake was when the Director of the Professional Golfers Association of Nigeria (PGAN), Festus Makelemi, one of the four veteran players in the event emerged winner of N1m through a raffle draw for veterans players.

An elated Makalemi, who was at the head of the PGAN team all through the tour, on behalf of body, showered praises on Globacom for putting so much smiles on the faces of West African golfers

Insisting that professional golf has never had it so good in the region, he  commended the firm  for making the dream of golfers a reality urging other firms to show true love for sports by sponsoring and generally joining forces with government to develop the sports sector.                 .

Even though Nigerian pros were lethargic and failed to glitter when it mattered most allowing Ghanaian and Cameroun pro golfers to steal the show by picking 4 of the top 10 spots,  the sponsoring firm says it is remains elated that it’s huge investment in golf, specifically the  Glo Golf Tour West Africa was justified even as it promised to soldier on in it’s efforts to move the sport to higher heights.                 .

The firm has also saluted Senate President, David Mark,  players and technical officials from the PGAN, who competed and worked tirelessly to ensure that the tour ended as an “unprecedented success.”                           ”

In an address at the prize giving/dinner, Director of Events and Sponsorship of the company, Bode Opeseitan on behalf of his principal, Dr. Mike Adenuga told the participants: “You have justified Globacom’s  huge investment in the Glo Golf Tour West Africa 2012, the tour which has the record of having the highest Pro-Am purse in Africa with its N62.5 million prize money plus other gifts, which at the end brings the total value of this tour to about two hundred million Naira.”

Addressing Mark, Opeseitan said,  “Sir, because of your vision and because of the determination of the golfers to  improve their games and because of the Glo Golf Tour 2012, golf will not be the same again in West Africa.

He continued, “For us in Globacom, we believe that all those who participated honourably and creditably in this tournament are winners. You all showed great promise that West Africa will someday compete favourably in the American and European circuits.                             .”

Opeseitan added, “We thank our brothers from Ghana, Cameroun, Benin Republic and Senegal for participating in this tournament and for their sportsmanship and also thank the PGAN for helping to make this tour a huge and unprecedented success.                     .

Before the tour kicked off, the PGAN had sent a passionate appeal through its Secretary and Tournament Coordinator, Jide Bolaji to Globacom urging the outfit to stay on in golf sponsorship.

Bolaji, at a media briefing at Globacom’s corporate headquarters described the Glo Golf Tour as a wonderful package for professional golf in the country, stressing, “Globacom is the first corporate body in the country to put in place such a wonderful package for professional golfers in the country. We want this to continue so that the Nigerian Tour will grow to a level where we can compete with other tours on the continent,” he stated.                       .

He added, “We are very appreciative of this development and appeal to Globacom to help us rule our world in golf.”

If anyone were to allow the Nigerian pros go away unlashed after what looked like a dismal outing in the tour, it was definitely not the Senate President, whose David Mark Foundation was instrumental to its birth.                     .

That explains, why in his remarks at the closing ceremony asked Nigerian pros to take their fate in their game and get serious with their game.                          .

“Play well and sponsors will be encouraged to invest in you. Show that if you are invested in, you will produced the required results. Golf is your profession, so take it serious. Once you are serious with your game, you will be able to match your counterparts in other parts of the world,” Mark charged the pros.

The Senate President, who singled out the Globacom Chairman, Dr. Adenuga, whom he described as his friend and brother, for special commendation for his massive support for sports development in West Africa stressed that by solely sponsoring the Glo Golf Tour 2012 with its scale and class, Globacom had done what he had always preached that the corporate sector should step in to support sports development in the country.

Earlier, Mark had informed that  Adenuga had accepted in principle to make the championship a continental affair as against the regional championship.

“We are going to get other organisations to come into this, but the Glo Tour will remain. This year, it is Glo Golf Tour West Africa, but based on the discussion I had with Chairman of Globacom on Saturday morning, from next year, it will be Glo African Tour, where all African countries would be invited to participate and from there hopefully, it will become Glo World Tour, where European, Latin America and America to come and be part of the championship.  This is really the beginning of a great sporting activity in this country.

On his part, Korblah, who won two of the four events in the tour described the tour as “a wonderful experience that will not only give professional players in the sub region a new lease of life, but also change the face of the sport in the sub-region.

He called on other firms to join the fray and contribute their quota to making professional golf attain its pride of place as in other parts of the world especially Europe and America.