The IBB International Golf and Country Club has announced the establishment of an endowment fund to promote golf development among the youth from age nine to seventeen.
The club captain, Dr Banjo Obaleye, made the announcement while addressing a press conference heralding the 2024 Captain’s Cup tournament. He said the IBB Golf Club will kickstart the fund with N10 million.
Emphasising the club’s commitment to uplifting the game, Obaleye called upon corporate organisation and well-to-do individuals to contribute to the endowment fund to support young talent, build their golfing skill and develop their career.
According to Obaleye, golf has become a million dollars game and it is high time Nigeria started tapping from resources like South Africa who has made significant progress in the game.
“Golf has become a game to reckon with globally, years back, it was restricted to the elite but now we discovered that many others who are not in the elite category have found their ways there through hard work and it has become a million dollars game. The Master Golf Tournament ended on Sunday and we saw multi-million dollars won by different participants.
“When we look , the only country that is making some marks in Africa is South Africa and it is because they have taken the game of golf to a level that many other countries in Africa are just trying to get it.
“We are not attracting institutional sponsorship for our game that helps us get our talents to the global space.
“ A few months ago, the Ladies Open was held here and we discovered a young girl who came up as a promising player for tomorrow if necessary support is gathered for her.
“For the three days event, she only had two faults, let me use a layman’s language, we had handicaps relating to the level errors that you are allowed to make. handicap 0-9, means your level of errors are between zero to nine, handicap 10-29 and 30-50 and so on. But this young lady played golf and only had two faults in three days. She just finished secondary school and she is 17-year-old. If there is support for these kinds of youth, Nigeria will start tapping another resource from sports.
“So, we have decided to look at this area by putting in place an endowment fund for golf development among the youth from age 9 to 17. We proposed that the club should champion this with the seed capital of N10million while we look for donors to see how we can sponsor some of these talents,” Obaleye said.
