Tag: GOLF

The resident golf professional of the Ikeja Club, Lagos, Jamiu Oyebajo, is a household name in the game of golf in Nigeria. The big names he has taught to play golf include former military governor of Lagos State, Gen. Mobolaji Johnson (rtd). A well travelled professional, his 40th year as Resident Professional Golfer was recently celebrated by a group of elders at the Ikeja Golf Club known as the Golf Mafia. Oyebajo is one of the founding members of the Professional Golfers Association of Nigeria (PGAN). He served in different offices of the association before becoming the director of PGAN. In this interview with GBENGA ADERANTI, Oyebajo explains that contrary to the belief in many quarters, golf is not an elite game. He speaks about his life as a golf player, his encounter with the late Chief Anthony Enahoro and life in England,`among other issues

Many people believe that golf is an elite game. How true is this?

Golf is a game like any other. People say the game of gulf is expensive because it is not a game that many are used to. This game was brought by the colonial masters and before now, it was only white people that were playing golf in the country. That is why people think it is only rich people that can play this game.

How did you get introduced to golf?

I started as a caddy. Caddies are the boys who carry bags all over the place on the golf course. I started that way around 1957 or so. We were caddying for white people.

I understand that you don’t just come into a club and become a caddy. How did you become one?

I had a sister who was selling food to workers at the Ikoyi Club back then. I followed her there to see what they were doing. From there, I developed interest in golf. As you rightly observed, there you could not just come in and start carrying bags; you must be registered. There must be an identity. That was how you could get in there to caddy for those who were playing.

Caddying was fun in those days. People were receiving three pence, which was big money when we were still going to school. Today, when you carry a bag round the field, you receive N1,000 or N2,000. It also depends on how good you are to the person you are carrying the bag for. But the rule is N1,000. Whether a caddy is good to you or not, you must pay him N1,000. Some of them today can carry two to three times and they make N3,000 per day. That was how I started.

In those days, you could count the number of Nigerians that were playing golf. They were not more than six or eight, because the game is not like football which everybody plays.

You eventually became a player…

Yes. At a point while I was growing up, the golf club members organised a competition for the caddies to play as well. It is like doing a job, and if you don’t have a feel of what you are doing, you cannot know the feeling of the people you are working for. That is why they organise caddy competitions.

But as God would have it, in 1968, they organised a caddy competition at Ikoyi Club. Luckily for me, I was the winner. This attracted Chief Anthony Enahoro, because I can even say he was the first Nigerian that played golf. He said he was going to encourage me to play the game.

At that time, I had already left school. My parents were not rich to send me to school and I was working, learning how to become a clearing agent.  Fortunately for me, after winning the competition, Chief Enahoro decided to see my parents and he said he wanted to handle me in the game of golf where my talent was. My parents consented.

He gave me a full set of kits to play at Ikoyi Club. That year, 1968, he spoke to the chairman of the Nigeria Tobacco Company (NTC) and that one decided that he would sponsor me to the UK. Pa Enahoro objected, saying that if the NTC man wanted to sponsor, he should sponsor about four caddies. So he sponsored four of us. Today, out of the four of us that were sponsored to England, only three of us remain. That was how we started.

We were sent to UK to train for one year. Because of my performance over there, mine was increased to one and a half years, because my boss made a recommendation back home and I was given six months extra. I was the one that came back last.

Everything you see here at Ikeja Golf Club started from Ikoyi Club in 1938. We had a white man there who was in charge of sending us to the UK. He remained here and when we returned from the UK, we remained under him. He was John Nosworthy. From there, we started moving. I stayed in Lagos with the white man until he left and Matthew Jacob took over. I was a professional and Jacob was our boss, like a shop manager. I was assisting him before I came here in 1975. That was 40 years ago, and that is what they are celebrating.

I am glad today that a lot of Nigerians are playing the game. If I take you round here, all those people sitting down there are members. They are not super rich; they only have interest in playing the game.

I’m happy that thousands are playing golf through those of us that were sent to the UK to train and we came and started training Nigerians. As at today, we have almost 120 professionals. Those were the people we trained when we came back.

Is it right to regard you as the second generation of Nigerian golfers?

Anthony Enahoro is like the pioneering father of golf in Nigeria, with about six other Nigerians. The game became popular when we became pro (professionals) and we started teaching Nigerians.

Why then do people say it is very expensive?

There is no sport that is not expensive. If you wanted to buy a tennis racket before, it was the cheapest. Today, it has become very expensive. One tennis racket can buy a set of clubs we use in playing golf. And if you don’t want to change your club, you can use it to play for 10 years, nothing stops you. But like every other sport, we have some people who don’t even know how to play well, but they use the most expensive equipment. The only difference between golf and other sports is that you have to be a member of a club. We have not got to a stage where we have public course. The public course is built by council. You pay and you play. But as it is right now, you have to be a member of a club before you play or you are a caddy and you have the opportunity of playing. To say it is expensive, there is no game that is not expensive, it depends on the person.

There is the belief too that whenever people come together to play golf, they seal business deals…

That is club affair. In any club, you have to do business. You make contacts and do business. It is not peculiar to golf club. Even in beer parlours where you drink, you get contacts. For every club you join, you are either looking for contracts or relaxation.

When you told your parents that you were going to play golf, what was their reaction?

There was no negative reaction. My school was in Falomo and my father was a fisherman. Any time we wanted to go and fish, we would pass through the golf course. We had been seeing them playing and some people were carrying their bags. That was what made me to follow my sister. I didn’t know that was what I was going to do for a living.

Your name sounds Lagos. Are you a Lagosian?

I am an Ijebu boy. I come from Ikorodu. I am  not a Lagosian. I’m qualified to be a Lagosian because I grew up here. I was born in Ikorodu, but I lived in Lagos and I’m now back to Ikorodu.  Lagosians are the people that come from far distances. If you say Lagosian, the Aworis will claim to be Lagosians. They are the owners of Lagos because it is closer to Badagry. The Ijebu man will also say he is a Lagosian because he comes from Ijebu and settled in Lagos. Even the Benin men, they say they are the owners of Lagos. But I’m an Ijebuman.

Are you saying Lagos is ‘no man’s land’ or it is owned by settlers?

I don’t agree. Why I don’t agree is that the Awori people are closer to Lagos. Like the Oto area; they are Awori people. Ijora are Awori people. Awori is everywhere. But I come from Ikorodu. My mother was from Ijede. So, those fishermen were the ones coming to this area.

I remember when we were very small, we could pass through Oko Alagbon to Ajah and say this time of the day, this species of fish would be there, and we would go by boat. As I told you, my father was a fisherman. Just as you calculate in the office, they also calculate where the tide would go and the type of fish that would be there. Just like the way every other game has its own strategy, if you are playing golf now, you are on your own, I’m playing one ball and you are playing one ball, and we are playing together. That is the difference between golf and other games. You cannot determine the man that is going to win in golf game until you finish. Once your decision is wrong, the other man takes the opportunity. The experience I gained as a fisherman helped me when I started playing golf. Everything we do in this world must have its own particular tactics.

As a resident professional who has been playing golf for the past 48 years, are you fulfilled?

I’m okay.

Is any of your children taking after you as a golfer?

They don’t follow me at all. I introduced two of them to it; one started playing before he abandoned it, saying that he would return after a while. That is why the profession is so delicate that you cannot have your son to take after your footsteps. I have used that to train them; let them too train their children. That is my prayer.

You started as a caddy and made a success out of it. How would you advise those who are battling despondency?

I never knew I was going to grow this big when I started. I only started. We were the first set of professionals. We trained boys and other boys became pros as well. A lot of them are on their own. I can tell you how many pros have passed through me. We have about seven here that are okay material wise. They have their own cars. They live in their own houses, and they are contented with what they have.

Would you say that being a caddy gave you an edge over others?

It depends on the individual. Whatever you are doing, you keep your head there. If you are not arrogant and you are cool and humble, you will get to where you are going. If someone had told me that through being a caddy I was going to do this or that in life, I would not have believed it. But I stayed there, I was trained, I trained a lot of people, I have everything I need in life. What else could I have asked for? I was telling you about the boys I trained here. Some of them just finished teaching and they get lots of money.

You grew up in Lagos. I want you to compare the Lagos of the old and Lagos of today.

Civilization brought a lot of corruption. Civilization brought a lot of things that were alien to Lagos. I told you that I lived at Oko Alagbon where you call Alagbon today. I would trek from there to watch film at Idera Cinema in Mushin and we would still trek back. There was nothing to be afraid of. If it was not 12 am, we would not think about going to parties. There was discipline. You dared not misbehave. But now, nobody bothers; even your neigbbour does not know the name of the next street. You can’t compare the two.

What was your relationship with the late Enahoro?

Chief Anthony Enahoro was like a father to me. He encouraged the younger ones to grow. He made golf popular among Nigerians. If he had not sent people like me and others abroad and we came back and started teaching Nigerians, golf would not have grown. We would still have been depending on expatriates to come and teach us. One thing I will never forget about Enahoro is that whatever I am today, he made it possible. And all the professional golfers in Nigeria today, it was Chief Enahoro who made us. If he did not sponsor us, there would not have been professional golf association in Nigeria today.

You had the privilege of being sent to the UK at an early age. Tell me your most memorable experience in the UK.

First of all, I enjoyed my stay. My boss, David Lewis, was very good to me. Initially, the weather was too cold. After about a month or so, I got used to the weather. My boss came to Nigeria and left me in his shop. Before he returned, I sold an item he had not sold for one year. When he returned, I was still staying in the shop. But there was a day I made a mistake. I locked the shop and I was supposed to turn off the alarm but I didn’t. When I came back in the morning, I just opened the shop and entered. Within five minutes, the alarm started ringing and I came out to put it off.

The police surrounded me and said, ‘Wait, where do you think you are going?’ I explained myself, then the cook from the club came down and said: ‘Jimmy, Jimmy’.  He explained to them that I forgot to put off the alarm before opening the shop. They just warned me not to do that again. If you don’t put off the alarm, police will come and surround you. When I phoned my boss in Nigeria and explained to him my encounter with the police, he laughed and said he had always warned me to always put off the alarm,

When he returned from Nigeria, he was impressed with what I did. I made good sales for him. That alone made my boss to ask for six more months for me to stay. I enjoyed my stay there and played a lot of tournaments. The boys were friendly. Occasionally, you could not do with the ones that were snobbish.