Olawale Ajimotokan
16 December 2008
Lagos — The maiden edition of the Nigerian version of the International Team Challenge golf championship, packaged by Consolidated Management Consultants Limited ended with the emergence of an all-foreign team as winners. The competition is played to decide the team that will represent Nigeria at the world finals in Las Vegas early next year.
The all-foreigners team, consisting nationals of America, Vietnam and Netherlands, played under the banner of the Exxon-Mobil and they beat the Ayisan team at the Ikoyi Club 1938, to the first place at the end of the four-ball event. The Exxon-Mobil team has Wessling Gregory, Harint Velv, Ahm Tran and Heyward Dyshes as players and their victory in the competition has given them the single Nigeria ticket for the world final billed for the last week of January, 2009. The final of the competition will take place in Las Vegas, United States of America.
The Exxon-Mobil team underlined its bragging rights to the Team Challenge final with a Stableford points haul of 116, three points clear of Ayisan. Two members of the team, Gregory and Dyshes are American citizens while Ahm is a Vietnamese. The last player, Velv is from The Netherlands. Their win underscored the diversity and the international outlook of the golf playing community in Nigeria.
Wessling who arrived in Nigeria nine months ago summed up the mood of members of the team as "euphoric."
According to the Texan, the team is proud of their emergence as Nigeria's flag bearers to the world final in Las Vegas where they are hoping to enjoy an incredible tournament and make it a Christmas vacation time at the same time.
The world final will be played over 54-holes at the Cascatta Golf Club while the teams will be accommodated at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in the heart of Las Vegas.
"For us, the positive is the immense pride in that we are going to represent Nigeria and Ikoyi at the Team Challenge in January. We won as a result of our incredible team effort and we are hoping that spirit will also count for us at the world stage," Wessling said.
Over 60 teams from across the country featured at the one-day final.
Coming up third in the tournament was GTI Capital led by Sola Lawson, the Commissioner of the PGA Nigeria Tour. The team posted 108 points while the Port Harcourt-based teams; Aserima Associates and Petro Dynamics took the fourth and fifth places respectively.
The Intercontinental Golf Team Challenge is the amateur version of the Ryder Cup that is played between America and the UK and is usually seen as the World Cup of the game. The scope of the tournament was expanded only this year, which thus paved the way for Nigeria to make its maiden appearance.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
