Port Harcourt Host Vmobile Corporate Golf Challeng

About 40 teams are listed to play at this single round
18 hole tournament which will serve as the national
qualifier competition to produce teams for the final
scheduled to hold on the 6th and 7th of May 2006, at
the Ikoyi Club 1938 golf course in Lagos. The final
will be over 36 holes.

Fenchurch Sports Management Limited, a wholly owned
Nigerian company acquired the license for this famed
tournament 8 years ago and brought it to Nigeria where
it has been extremely well received. In all, not less
than 30 countries from all continents participate in
the tournament every year.

Mr. I.K. Alagoa, Captain of the golf section of the
Port Harcourt club, said, "Each year we are inundated
with entries for this competition by avid golfers keen
to hone their skills. This tournament gives them the
perfect opportunity not only to shine on the world
stage, but to get our amateur players into
international reckoning,"

He added, "The rise of golf in Nigeria as a recreation
and as a sport has been encouraging."
 This development has also seen participation across
gender and over a wide age range and the popularity of
the game continues to grow with more and more people
taking to the course and using the game as an avenue
for business, pleasure and friendly competition.

Competition in Port Harcourt will be intense as the 20
teams proceeding to the National Finals at Ikoyi Club
1938 two weeks later will then be putting their skills
to the test for a chance to represent Nigeria at the
World Corporate Golf Challenge Finals in the Malaysian
capital city of Kuala Lumpur at the end of May, 2006.
This year's tournament will take place at the Saujana
Golf and Country Club, about 30 minutes drive from
Kuala Lumpur.

One of the most established golf resorts in Malaysia,
this venue has two excellent courses, one of which is
a regular host to the Malaysian Open and boasts of
some of the most luxurious accommodation on the Asian
continent. The course features slick greens, sloping
fairways and deep, impenetrable ravines. At 6,610
yards for amateur, the Saujana course is not long but
by its nature and design, is one of the most
challenging and memorable.

It will be recalled that last year that the Ayisan
Limited Team, led by a Past Captain of Ikoyi Club 1938
(Golf Section) Ayinde Sanni and supported by three
other crack amateur golfers – Joe Abu, Remi Olukya &
Tim Ayonmike - won the Vmobile Corporate Golf
Challenge and went on to represent Nigeria at the
World Finals held in La Manga Spain in July 2005.

Other sponsors of the event are global
telecommunications giant Ericsson, British Airways,
DHL, Toyota and Custodian and Allied Insurance.
Ericsson, in the last four years, has continued to
underline its growing involvement in the community in
general and the game of golf in particular by
increasingly identifying with this pre-eminent amateur
golfing event. Similarly, DHL and British Airways are
re-affirming their support this year, as are Toyota
and Custodian & Allied Insurance.

As has become a tradition at the tournament, a wide
array of entertainment has been lined up for
participants, guests, sponsors and partners who will
be treated to live musical performances and stand up
comedy among other things .

A separate programme has been scheduled for later in
year for the very popular Vmobile Golf Days introduced
last year and organisers say the same sponsors will be
supporting this series of competitions across 10
active golf clubs with their own special Golf Travel
Package as the Ultimate Prize

By Ernest Ekpenyong