Runsewe
Turns PGA Americas’ attention to Nigeria
The Director General of the Nigeria Tourism
Development Corporation, Otunba Olusegun Runsewe has secured a pact with the
Professional Golfers Association of America Tour (PGA Tour) that may drive golf
development deeper in the country.
Runsewe, who was recently a guest at the PGA head
quarters at Ponte Verda in Florida, says his meeting with the world biggest
professional golf tour office was inspired by his conviction of the strong ties
between tourism and the game of golf.
“I have seen the huge tourism returns that my
colleagues elsewhere in the world has achieved through the channels of golf and
from the over 70 billion US dollars and more than the golf tourism industry
offers we need to position Nigeria to tap from it. We have the players, the
will and there are tremendous facilities that is complimenting this what we
have to work out is to activate some essential aspect of the industry”
At the meeting where he met some key directors of
the PGA Tour, including Brian Woyt; the Tours Director of Branding Marketing, Carlton
Kitchens; Director of Business Development, Dan Glod; Vice
President Business Development among others, the
tourism henchman, sealed a deal that will see the Tour train selected Nigerian professionals
in capacity building and also helping them secure some spots at international tours.
“It was very pleasing for our office to be able to
activate this aspect of golf development that we believe other golf bodies especially
the Nigerian PGA can build on for further prospects.” He said.
No Nigerian professional player has featured in a
world ranking point event in close to two years and no Nigerian players is
ranked at the Official World Ranking for the professionals which Runsewe
believes was a misrepresentation of the quality of golf skill represented by the
Nigerian professional players.
“As a golfer myself, I dare say we have players
that came hold their own on the global stage, but it is painful that we don’t
really have the platforms for these players to show-up and be counted and I believe
we can do more for Nigeria to get the measure of the attention especially in
terms of golf tourism”
Otunba Runsewe also added that one other point, the
NTDC was trying to achieve with the PGA pact for Nigeria is to be able to help
Nigeria get a comfortable spot for the 2016 Olympics.
“As for now, the next Olympics that would be in Rio
Brazil will feature golf and that is a wonderful platform to get funding for
the games development and more importantly to attract the world attention to
the level of development here. Since the qualifying countries will be chosen by
World Ranking, we will not be doing ourselves any good if we keep our best
professional locked outside of top Tours where the world ranking events do take
place for now or else we will just wake up in 2016 and find Nigeria missing and
that is what we can avoid with this partnership”
Runsewe said that there are many aspects of golf
development that PGA Tour pact can yield and that is if the golf bodies can
appreciate and work with the NTDC to make it work.
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