IBB Golf Club Celebrates Women’s Golf Day, reveals plan for Olympic
The Ladies Golfers in Nigeria Tuesday, joined the rest of the world to mark the Women’s Golf Day. The event which took place at the prestigious IBB International Golf and Country Club, Maitama, Abuja, had over 150 women (girls and ladies) that participated.
Vice President of the Ladies Golf Club Association of Nigeria, Northern Zone, Mrs Ekanem Ekwueme said that the event has a significant impact on women especially the golfers irrespective of age.
Ekwueme disclosed that they have concluded plans to train junior golfer that would represent Nigeria at the forthcoming junior Olympic.
Mrs Ekwueme also used the opportunity to dispute views in certain quotas that golf is an elites game, calling on young women in Nigeria to join.
She said, “In Nigeria, golf is taken as an elites’ sport, but it may surprise you to know that it is the contrary. Therefore, we are trying to create that awareness that golf is not an elites sport, and every woman or girl child needs to get involved.
“Like the saying goes, ‘you trained a woman, you trained a village.’ So we are hoping that by training a woman in golf the woman would be able to impact the ideals of golf to her children and create that awareness that golf is not for the elites.”
“Another thing we have to know is that in Nigeria, we have just one professional lady golfer. Golf instill a lot of discipline in individual, it is like life and you need that discipline because if you don’t have it then it’s not there.
“Today is the set aside to mark the International Women Golf Day, it is a day set aside to celebrate girls and ladies playing golf or intending to play golf. It is simply, a day we celebrate the ladies because they are special specie. ”
“You need to start training your kids from the age of two and three so that by the time they are 10 years old they would have been playing at the level of professional. In Nigeria, we really need to start training our kids and it’s not easy but the discipline has to be instill in them.
“We all want our children to be graduate and for you to pursue golf at that level you might not be able to go all out to do that.
But we are trying to encourage mothers to understand that it’s not all about work at all times but you have to out on play sometimes, maybe from the we can catch them young. “We have a course now for a junior team that would going for the junior Olympic and that has just been approved.”
On wether the club has the required resources to train the junior golfer that will go for the junior Olympic, the former Lady Captain said; we believe that we would get the support we need to be able to move forward to achieve these things and that is what the International Women Golf Day is all about, we have to start somewhere because nobody would do it for us if we don’t start.
Earlier speaking, the Director General of National Council for Art and Culture Otumba Orunsewe, who was one of the special guests at the event, described it as a wonderful day for the women golfers in Nigeria.
He urged the women to take the game very serious because of its numerous benefits not only to health but for their general wellbeing.
Orunsenwe recalled that, “the truth that most people don’t know, women started golf in the 1550, the first golf course was established by a lady, the ladies didn’t start playing until the 18th.
“Today is their day and we are celebrating with them. Again, the first time a lady would play in the Masters was in 2014, which has made it now an opened tournament to men and women.
“So, for me, the ladies have made a major mark in this game all over the world and the Nigerian chapter needs to be commended for this innovation and I pray and hope they would succeed,” he added
Speaking on the significance of the even, the Lady Captain of IBB International Golf and Country Club Abuja, Mrs Grace Ihonvbere said it was a memorable event and they have consciously work hard to mark the event with pumps and pergeantries.
“We are celebrating women in golf world wide, we are celebrating women, young girls and ladies who are golfers and non-golfers.
Mrs Ihonvbere explained; “It’s something that is taking place in hundreds of golf clubs all over the world simultaneously between the hours of 9:00am and 1:00pm.
From the hours of nine and 11 the golfers play nine hole kitties while the non-golfers all took golf lessons in the range. We and networked with each other after the game, and invite people who are very knowledgeable in the field of golf to address us on the health and social benefits of golf especially to women.
“It’s a great day, we had over a hundred and fifty women in participation and lots of men who came around to give the women support.”
She said that the IBB Golf would continue to promote women participation in golf and ensure they compete favorably with their counterpart across the globe.
