Adekanola, Nigeria’s pillar of golf clocks 62
Otunba Olusola Adekanola spends most of money on golf, even as he said, “But I’m not the richest man in golf. He is golf’s own paradigm of strength. At best, he is Nigeria’s pillar of golf. Come next week, this ebullient man of golf will be celebrating his 62nd birthday. And as usual, the celebration could come in form of a Pro-Am golf tourney. He speaks to
on his involvement in golf.
My contact with golf
The whole thing started in late 1996 when I was in Port Harcourt for an assignment. There, some of my friends mostly golfers wanted me to play the game. They piled so much pressure on me that some of them were even buying me golf bags. Those friends of mine even registered me at the Port Harcourt Golf Club just to see me play the game. I can tell you that Chief Goddy Ajuka and Chief Edward Ajebo were in the frontline of those who wanted to see me on course. The funny thing was I didn’t know what the game was all about and I didn’t take time to find out. However, all this changed when I came back to Lagos. My very good friend, Lekan Biobaku, came to my Alausa office one day and told everybody waiting to see me that he was taking me away in 30 minutes time, and that if any of the visitors wanted to do anything with me they should be fast about it. And he did just that. He dragged me to the Ikoyi Golf Club and for the first time ever, I had a feel of what the game of golf was all about. I had my first lesson. My teaching Pro was Ben Smart. The first day was so frustrating. I mean you were looking at small, small balls and you could not get to hit them. The frustration of the first day set me out the next day. As a person, I love taking challenges.
The truth is that I never considered golf to be a sport. I knew back then that it was played by the elites and well to do in the society. It’s only I could not see the sport in having to chase a small ball all over the place. I looked at it the same way I looked at Polo. But golf is quite different. You get to know, through golf, the nature of human beings especially on the golf course. You know life itself is filled with ups and downs. This is golf for you. Sometimes you play well sometimes you don’t. But if you could maintain a certain dignity even when you don’t play well says a lot about the man you are. Then you can talk about integrity. Could you be trusted? The way you mark your card, for instance, will show how trustworthy you are. You see, golf is such a unique game...very natural.
Tournaments sponsored I
have
I’ve done quite a lot in this regard. But I keep telling myself that I’m not the richest man in golf circle. I know a lot of people in influential positions, corporate bodies and multinationals and I always maintain that they can do much more for golf. But unfortunately these people don’t want to identify themselves with golf sponsorship. I don’t think this is a right attitude. If you believe in a game and know the worth of that game to your well being then you should be able to put up a sacrifice. I don’t think its asking too much of these people .... Captains of industries to organise tournaments.
They can just throw their weight around and put more tournaments on the golf circuit. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for. Even though some of them complain about bad attitude of golf professionals...I don’t really think this is enough to shut tourneys out of the calendar. It’s as if you have a bad son and you think the solution is to disown him. Well, that is not the solution. The more tournaments they have the more opportunity they have to interact with themselves. And since the system in golf is purifying, the bad eggs are always identified and weeded out in time. Most tournaments are about competition. There are no hiding places here. If you are not serious about your golf career, you won’t make money.
So if you know you want to live on golf, then you must put in hard work. Sure, there are bad eggs in every profession. I’m a Chartered Accountant, for instance but it’s not every Chartered Accountant you can vouch for as far as integrity goes. So every organisation will always have its own bad eggs.
Without any doubt, I am so proud that I have given so much to the game in past years. You know why? The game has grown so fast in Nigeria and I can’t even believe it. This is reason I always tell people that I have just one regret in life. That is not starting golf in the early years of my life’