Director of Professional Golfers Association (PGA) of Nigeria, Samson Lawal, has reiterated that the association is not buoyant enough to give out palliatives to its members in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.
South Africa’s Sunshine Tour, as part of its efforts to cushion the effect of the COVID-19 outbreak on its players, recently announced a comprehensive financial relief programme for South African men’s and women’s professional golfers with a monthly stipend to its member professionals, and on a scale according to their various categories of membership, for the months of April and May 2020.
The Women’s Professional Golf Association (WPGA), in partnership with the Sunshine Ladies Tour, announced a similar financial programme for the top 25 South African professionals on the Sunshine Ladies Tour as the Sunshine Tour also pays a monthly stipend for April and May 2020 to all the caddies, who are registered with the South African Caddie Association (SACA) and who have been active in the 2019-2020 Sunshine Tour season.
In view of this, the PGA of Nigeria Director, Samson Lawal, said the association lacked the financial capacity to embark on charity drive to bail out some of its ailing members, adding there were currently no tournaments to boost its revenue base.
“I quite appreciate the economic hardship the players are going through at the moment because of the Coronavirus, which is a global problem. Unfortunately, PGA Nigeria has no money at all to help out because as I speak, to maintain the secretariat is a big issue for us; we need to pay staff salaries and take care of other logistics. I can tell you for free that we don’t have up to N5 million in the treasury,” he lamented.
He added: “We can only effectively carry out humanitarian services just when tournaments are running and we are getting our percentages and that is the global practice. PGA of Nigeria doesn’t get subvention from the government like the Nigeria Golf Federation (NGF). We generate our revenue from tournaments and members annual subscription fees. People still owe the association money and it’s a shame that we are yet to get the payment of those debts”, he lamented.
