Emir Dutse brings succour to poor kid golfers

This is clear enough. All the big boys who are ruling the game of golf in the world today, from Tiger Woods to Jason Day, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth all grew from lowly environment where their parents could not afford to take them to country clubs where they could put forth their talents in the game. Their parents were just too poor to be members of golf clubs where the game was being played privately.

But these guys were lucky. Around every precinct, there was a public golf course where they could as well hone in their talents. And they effectively made use of such public facilities and this is why they are on top of the world golf game today. Even kids who loitered the country clubs in their time remained faceless,

Nigeria as a nation is blessed with talented kid golfers who could beat the daylight from a Tiger or a McIlroy. The problem here is these kids are mere Caddies who don’t have places to exhibit their talents since they are only allowed one day of play in the arrogant membership Club they ply their Caddie trade. But all that could be in the past since there could be a makeshift arrangement for poor kids who want to play to have direct access to the game. And this is all courtesy of the Emir of Dutse and indeed the Chairman of Golf Course Owners of Nigeria [GCON], Dr. Muhammadu Sanusi.

“It pains me when I see kids who are talented but so poor to play the game” the Emir stated. “This is wrong and I have been doing so much to change the system. It is the responsibility of the government to provide for poor kids who want to play the game. This can only be achieved if the government can provide public golf courses across the six regions of the country to start with. But nobody is doing this and our poor kids are in great dilemma, asking if they will ever play this game to the high level, especially now that the game of golf is an Olympic game.

“Do you know what I want to do? I want to reason with my friends who own golf courses like I do own the Royal Dutse in Jigawa State. I want to plead with them to allow those private courses be used as public courses so we can harness the talents of the poor youths. If we start this, I believe the government will see enough reason and build public golf courses. I believe this will just work”.

This could indeed work. At the moment, private golf courses are situated in about all the regions of Nigeria. Among them are the Royal Dutse in Jigawa, St. Marks in Otukpo, Porto in Kano, Smokin Hills in Ondo, Lakes course in Lakowe, Lagos, Golf Garden Water Front and Parkland in Abuja, Miccom in Osun and Igosun in Kwara.