Richard Animam
4 January 2009
opinion
The only things that will stand between golf and development this year would be the economic downturn or the fear of its implications (as it will largely be) which will impart on the huge and bright potentials that the golf community had built for itself in 2008.
Obama golf holiday in Hawai late part of 2008 and its huge coverage of it has its own implications for the game especially when the crusader for the game is now a man that a chunk of the happening in the new year will circle around.
In Nigeria, the last phase of the ceding the entire control of some sports federation would by the National Sports Commission in January will a mean a lot. At least will give a hint of government sincererity for the exercise, the motivation for public private partnership (PPP) and of course ultimately determining the fulcrum in which golf's development will further be built.
Already there is excitement in the air and if the moribund NGF (Nigerian Golf Federation) can be handed to the right party the amateur golf can at least get a glimmer of chance of coming off doldrums in the periods that will follow.
For now, no proper direction for the amateur golf and the only visible faces of the national golf bodies Ben Agbi (a tournament coordinator) and Abel Edinomo (who is more concerned with smoothening his contacts with the international bodies) have been left to do little or nothing to steer amateur forward no thanks to the leadership of the body which Shina Aigoro a former Ikoyi Club Captain heads. Anyway, the final say of the NSC on who pilots golf in the coming years and the conditions attached will reshape all that hierarchy and that is why most golfers are really anxious of many development that 2009 will bring about especially from the NSC angle.
In the elite class of the game, a lot of things seem more set especially for the efforts that the PGAN (Professional Golfers Association of Nigeria) and its Tour arm The PGA Nigeria Tour had put been putting in place since August 2007 when it appointed a professional marketer Olushola Lawson as the CEO of the Tour.
His first effort with the TPC (Tour Partners Championship) in January 2008 was a Morse code although he could not follow up in the year with more events other than the 10th CMCL Open in Abuja. He has managed to set a standard both for himself and the watching (and growing) golf enthusiasts in the country.
Perhaps his undoing in the year was raising a too-high bar for himself by setting a six tournament in the first year of the tour which a lot of pundits are now judging him against.
No doubt he has fallen below par on that ground, but the PGA Tour has been the most successful golf body in 2008 ( If any award need to be given for that) and all to the mew standards and verve that Olushola Lawson and his team has brought to golf by the way of 'upping the ante' of golf Marketing and golf event management.
Four last minute postponement also rocked the PGA Tour calendar which if it had not would have left Oluhsola Lawson a superman in his first year despite the distractions he had along the line.
BGL Challenge, UBA Prestige, NDDC Classic and Oba of Benin Cup are all high flier event that the Tour had hoped would have reshaped golf in the year that got eventually put forward, the anxiety that they are been fitted for the 2009 calendar is enough tonic that had got some professional golfers from countries around Africa lobbying to get invite to while some are seeking outright partnership or membership
from the Nigeria PGA.
There is the Heroes Golf Challenge (in memory of Nigeria's fallen heroes), Oando Championship, The Charity Shield, and Pinnacle Matchplay and of course the big task of resuscitating the age-long classic Nigeria Open too in 2009.
The PGA Tour has stirred the hornet nest and it behooves on them to stand up to it. And Olushola L:awson has displayed some potentials that may get his name end up in the history books as the man that brought Nigeria's professional golf back to limelight. The coming year will answer for him and professional golf.
Quite lot private golf firms have been on the vanguard of developing different sectors of the game and one of the leading firms in Global Golf who have secured a corporate backing to promote to international amateur event Franchise in the country.
In 2009, Global Golf will delve beyond the twelve events it packaged on the local circuit adding a new event tagged the "All Financials" that on its own has raised the expectation of the regular amateur players who follow their trail of events (ten of them will be on the bill on Communication firm- MTN). for Global Golf 2009 may be bigger as they may become the first Nigerian outfit to get a right to coordinate golf in a foreign land.
CMCL Tour too has had some success that the new year will offer an opportunity to build on.
The Luqman Owolewa led group brandished the Teen-on-the-Green a youth development programmme that has been commended as the best developmental effort in 2008, it should continue and perhaps expand in 2009.
Other bit that may gladden golf followers include the fact that a few Nigerian professionals would be trying out their hands on the fastest growing professional golf tour in the world (the Asian Tour) in Thailand this January. Their success would be a big boost for local golf among others. There may the launch of some new golf courses in the country; and since the Le Meridien Hotel and Golf Resort got listed in April 2007, any new golf course plan that does not beat it may perhaps not be existing.
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