Sunday Olapade of the Ikoyi Club 1938 Golf Section during the weekend claimed the second Custodian Golf Classic at the Lakowe Lakes Golf Club in Lagos to record his first victory on the Professional Golf Developmental (PGD)Tour.
Olapade shot 73, 68, 73 (214), two under par, to pocket the N3 million star prize at the 54-holes affair.
“It was a tough event, given the quality of the players on the field. I think hard work paid off for me and I want to thank God for the opportunity to win this event,” he said after holing the winning put.
Ghana’s Augustine Manasseh led the foreign players’ charge for the title that ended him at 222 (+6), which could only fetch him a joint fourth-place finish alongside Oturkpo-based George Inalegwu.
Nigeria’s former number one, Kamalu Bako, who topped the event’s leaderboard with a 68, four under par on the opening day, struggled to a second-place finish with four strokes adrift of Olapade’s winning score. Francis Epe, current PGD Tour leader, placed third with 224, four over par finish, suffering the same fate.
Wole Oshin, the Group Managing Director of Custodian Investment, said that the tournament presented opportunity for the sponsor to show support for the abundance of talent in professional golf in Nigeria.
“As we support professional golf, we also believe other corporates and individuals can see the potential in the golfers and lift them,” Oshin said.
“The competition’s purse was increased to N20 million this year, up from the N10 million for the maiden edition last year at the Ikoyi Club, in response to the high number of foreign players request to be part of the event from the entries as well as data analysed from the first edition,” he also said.
Meanwhile, PGD Tour’s Commissioner, Femi Olagbenro, has said that the Tour is gaining momentum, and his board is working to raise the deliverables for all stakeholders.
“We are bringing freshness to the Tour on so many fronts, the tweaks we also are working on with the venue and trying to bring in new sponsors while ensuring all parties get the right value for their investment,” Olagbenro said.