Top golf stars from the West Africa region have enrolled for the second edition of the eTranzact Golf Classic, which will hold at the IBB International Golf and Country Club, Abuja, from May 15 to May 17, 2024, with a N20 million purse.
The event debuted on the PGD (Professional Golf Development) Tour last year, but this term it is coming with a promise to deepen its core objective of helping unearth and promote golf talent in the region.
Unveiling the event at the weekend, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of eTranzact, Niyi Toluwalope, said his firm has been on the path of pioneering projects, providing financial technology platforms for businesses to succeed, and the eTranzact Golf Classic is an offshoot of this vision.
“We are very supportive of the design and the management objectives of the Professional Golf Development Tour. That is why we launched the eTranzact Golf Classic on it last year. This year, we have taken our support for the golf development project a notch higher by introducing some changes around the event.
“This edition will be staged at the IBB International Golf and Country Club, in Abuja. This is our bid to bring a new flavour in terms of the challenge that the IBB Golf Course brings to the event. The other factor that would be different is that the event would now have a purse of N20 million, which is double what was on offer at the maiden edition,” he said.
Toluwalope said that the event is also meant to appeal to a broader audience across the continent, who have been showing interest since the event debuted last year.
Also speaking on the tourney, PGD Tour Commissioner, Femi Olagbenro, said the new tweaks to the eTranzact event were welcomed and added to the portfolio of innovations that the Tour is known for.
“What eTranzact brings to the Tour and the golf community at large is their pioneering spirit and so far I can confirm that these additions are well received. Registrations have been on the high and entries are swelling,” he added.
The first edition of the event staged at the Lakowe Lakes Golf Course in Lagos, was won by Francis Epe, who currently leads the PGD Tour’s 2024 ranking with a marginal point difference from Olapade Sunday, whose win in the event might upstage the ranking order.
Other threats to Epe’s crown are Okoko Godwin, Kamalu Bako, Inalegwo George, Elisha Markus, and Kabiru Habu Mohammed on the home front.
Top West African players like Ghana’s trio of Barry Yaw, Augustine Manasseh, and Vincent Torgah are also on the cards to cause ripples.
Olagbenro said that entries are also expected from Cameroon, Togo and Cote d’Ivoire, as well as other West and Central African countries.
