Updated!
Following TheGolfer Online’s reportage on the fall-out of the Ghana Open event, we have delved into the issues to discover the merits or otherwise, the claims by Mr. Mike Aggrey, President of Ghana Golf Association against Prof. Bernard Baiden, Head of Operations at the Royal Golf Club, Kumasi.
In our news feature yesterday, we stated that Mr. Aggrey had questioned why the Royal Golf Club staged a Founder’s Day Greensome on the same day as the Ghana Open.
He believed that the move was meant to prevent Kumasi golfers from participating in the Open and therefore threatened to sanction the Royal Golf Club accordingly.
In this feature, we are putting the issues side by side to see how hosting the Founder’s Day Greensome might have impacted the turn-out of the Ghana Open.
Our checks have revealed that eleven (11) golfers from Kumasi registered to participate in the Ghana Open, of this figure however, only two (2) turned up and played in the Open.
Our sources at the Royal Golf Club indicated that of the eleven, two golfers decided to play in the Founder’s Day Greensome because they could not make it to the Open for various reasons.
One of the two golfers saw the entry fee of GHC250 as too expensive. The other didn’t attend the Open because we are told that his friend could not make the handicap required to compete in the Open.
Interestingly, the remaining seven (7) golfers of the eleven (11) who originally entered their names for the Ghana Open neither featured in the Greensome nor the Open.
Also, of interest is that a section of golfers on the first day of the Open converged at the Achimota Golf Club to play in friendly competitions.
There seems to be an atmosphere of apathetic tendencies towards the Ghana Open and the general operations of the Ghana Golf Association by section of the playing body.
We have been speaking to some of the golfers who decried the leadership style of the association as a contributory factor to the plight of the association.
After its inability to organize the Open last year, there certainly seems to be more work to be done to sanitize operations and activities of the Ghana Golf Association.
TheGolfer Online
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