Guardian

AFTER a cursory look at the out gone 2012 season in the Nigerian Tour, Director of Special Duties of the Professional Golfers’ Association of Nigeria (PGAN), Dominic Andrew says his colleagues must redouble their efforts if they intend to remain relevant in the scheme of things.

Andrew, who was speaking against the backdrop of the commanding performance staged by Ghana’s Emos Korblah and Vincent Torgah, both from Ghana said breaking the duo’s dominance can never be achieved through wishful thinking but hard work.

According to him, now that Globacom has shown that it was possible for professional golfers to live as millionaires playing the game, it was time they sat up and face their careers squarely.

“Golf is an international game that knows no boundaries hence tournaments can be won by any good player irrespective of the country where the tournament is taking place. But as a Nigerian player, I don’t feel happy that the Nigerian Tour in the year 2012, was dominated by just two foreign professionals, who are also members of the Nigerian Tour. Emos Korblah and Vincent Torgah, to the best of my knowledge, have had the best of their career in 2012. I want to believe that 2012 was a year that the duo were meant to outshine everybody on the tour, and this is not strange because we had people like Peter Akakasiaka, Raphael Iyonagbe, Lateef Lasisi, Oche Odoh and my humble self dominating at some point.

He continued, “However, my personal belief as a person is that we have not done enough work to improve our own standard of play. I am saying that because when I look back at the scores with which Korblah and Torgah are winning tournaments, I remember that in the days I was playing well and winning, such scores would not find a place in the top 10 on the Leaderboard.

“So I can say without any iota of contradiction that they are not playing fantastic golf, but they are winning because our indigenous players have dropped form. This happens in sports and we all know that there is no sport that one person or a group of persons can dominate in perpetuity. So what we have to do as professionals is to go back to the drawing board and assess what went wrong and how corrections can be made. The bottom line is that we have to prepare ourselves well for the beginning of the 2013 season because Korblah and Torgah, have done credibly well for themselves in the last season. They did not only get to the top, but they succeeded in staying there for a while especially Korblah.”

Andrew, PGAN’s immediate past tournament director added, “I would like to say that much as we have had success in what could be described as the best calendar year in the history of PGAN in terms of number of tournaments as well as tournament purse, it is also an eye opener that one can honestly become a millionaire playing this game in Nigeria if one works hard enough. So I would use this opportunity to challenge every Nigerian golfer as well as foreign members of the PGAN to redouble their efforts.

On the recently concluded Glo Golf Tour West Africa, which a Nigerian player won only an event out of the four, Andrew said, “The Globacom Tour is not a Nigerian, but a West African thing. The fact that it was held in Nigeria does not mean that Nigerians must win all the events. We should also expect that golfers from other West African countries are entitled to win the events. Having said that, I want to commend Globacom for the sole sponsorship of the tour, which has gone a very long way.