By Akeem Lawal
A total of 40 professional
golf players from eight West African countries will be on parade when the maiden
Eko Golf Challenge Cup on the 2018 West Africa Golf Tour tees-off on Wednesday at
the Lakowe Lakes Golf Club in Lagos, Sportsbiz247.blogspot.com reports.
The West Africa Golf Tour is
a Nigerian initiative, dedicated to promoting and developing the game of golf
in Africa by organizing internationally-acclaimed professional tournaments and
introducing golf education programmes in schools.
Nigeria’s professional
golfer, Gift Willy, who is ranked 4th in West Africa will lead his compatriot
from Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja against other golfers from Gabon, Senegal,
Cameroon, Ghana, Togo, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Ghana that will parade Vincent
Torgah, who finished 2nd at the just concluded FCT Classic on the 2018 West
Africa Golf Tour held at the IBB International Golf and Country Club, Abuja.
A total prize money of
25,000 Euros is available at the tournament with the overall winner going home
with 4,000 Euros.
President of West Africa
Golf Tour, Emeka Okatta informed Sportsbiz247.blogspot.com that Eko Challenge Cup is a platform
for professional golfers to excel and improve on the sport.
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(l-r) Nigeria’s professional golfer, Gift Willy;
Ghana’s
Vincent Torgah and President of West Africa Tour, Emeka Okatta in Lagos on
Tuesday
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“West African Golf Tour is
hoping and planning to become the sixth tour in the world. Right now the top
five are USA PGA Tour, Sunshine Tour, European Tour, Asian Tour, Japanese Tour
and we are working towards that and we are planning to have a co-sanction event
with all these tours.
“The reason to have a co-sanction
event is for players to have international world ranking points. If you don’t
have a co-sanction event, the players will not have ranking points and will not
be ranked. Now golf has been included in the Olympics and the selection of
golfers from countries to go to Olympics is based on world ranking.
“So this is one of our
developmental tours aimed at providing players more opportunities to build
their careers as professional golfers and compete internationally.
“Also organization of
international golf tournaments in Nigeria will contribute to creating an
emerging domestic tourism market, which in turn will put Nigeria in the
limelight and boost the country’s image and economy.
“Knowing that the
development of the sport needs future generations, the West Africa Golf Tour
has created a Foundation that offers golf education programmes to children and
youngsters in elementary and secondary schools in order to introduce and
encourage the practice of the game so that future players and winners will be
coming from Nigeria.
“We are taking golf to
schools because we realized that if you watch the no 1 player in the world
today, Dustin Justin is 33 years old. Former no.1 Jordan Spieth is 24 years
old, Justine Thomas now is 24 years old, all of them started golf from school.
“In Abuja we have about
eight schools we teach golf on regular basis and lot of schools have written us
to come and participate and do that in their schools. That is why we moved down
to Lagos because we need to introduce the same thing in Lagos schools,” Okatta told Sportsbiz247.blogspot.com.
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