Econet Corporate Golf Challenge

: Ascot Oil & Gas Leads Four Others to Accra

ASCOT Oil & Gas has clinched the Eastern regional qualifier ticket to compete in the national finals of Econet Corporate Golf Challenge 2003 to be held on the Golf Course of Achimkota in Accra, Ghana next month. The team, playing a total of 46 Handicaps led four other teams by scoring 116 stableford points to assume the position of leading Corporate teams from the Eastern region.

Samplex Limited, with a total Handicaps 21 was the first runner-up with 112 stableford points, while Jack Reynolds Engineering, which had th like of the first military governor of River State, and now a monarch, King Alfred P. Diette-Spiff and Engineer R.B. Dagogo-Jack as top player and captain respectively returned as the second runner-up with 111 stableford points. The team beat Allshon, which also had 111 stableford points, to the fourth position by countback scores. Michelin, the leading Corporate team in last year's Eastern regional qualifier narrowly qualified by coming 5th this year with 108 stableford points. Just the same way last year's National Champion and representative of Nigeria at the World Corporate Golf Challenge in Jamaica, ULO Consultants of Abuja, narrowly lost the qualifying ticket to Abmed International, as a result of countback scores, Yomatech Nigeria Limited, having posted same stableford points as Michelin, also narrowly missed joining the five qualifying teams from the Eastern region on countback of 53 against the latter's 56, having scored the same 108 stableford points.

These five teams, alongside the five which qualified from the Northern regional qualifier in Kaduna last weekend will be joined by the ten teams that will emerge from the Western regional qualifier in Lagos on May 24 for the Ghana onslaught.

Sixteen Corporate teams and one non-scoring team, Econet, competed for the region's five tickets. All of them were from Port Harcourt, except Ekab International, which came from Calabar and Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), which came all the way from Lagos to try it luck, but it was not that lucky as it came 10th.

Paul Abiyou, Handicap 10 and Captain of Ascot Oil & Gas, the leading Corporate team in this year's Eastern regional qualifier, was very excited about his team wining the tournament. "We're quite happy about winning this tournament. We have been able to come this far as a result of our hard work and because luck was on our side," Abiyou said.

Expressing his excitement at playing at the national final in Achimota Golf Course, Abiyou revealed that Achimota is not new to him because two of his mates and himself have played on the Achimota Golf course a couple times. "We are not afraid of Achimota Golf course, because we've been there before, what we're looking forward to is the final of the World Corporate Golf Challenge in Spain," Abiyou declared optimistically.

None of the players cold score the hole-in-one in hole 12 to win the brand new Toyota car put down for whoever could score in the hole by Custodian and Allied Insurance Limited, one of the associate sponsors of the Challenge. The same situation occurred in Kaduna when nobody could win the car put up for gras in hole-in-one, hold 8.