The policeman responsible for recruiting and training outstanding golfers for the Nigerian police force, Mohammed Suleiman, said that without early marriages, women’s golfers from the north of the country would have dominated the country’s women’s golf scene indefinitely.
A vigilant and astute thinker, Suleiman revealed that he spotted three better golfers after discovering Rachael Danjuma and Amina Wilfred, two police officers who have ruled the nation’s women’s golf for more than a decade. But unfortunately, the trio couldn’t step into the spotlight because they were given in marriages at a young age.
“This is a problem that I have no control over,” said Suleiman, who started playing golf in 1977 at the age of eleven, said over the weekend. “I trained three teenage cops and I was sure they would be better than Rachael and Amina. After their training was satisfactory, I worked on their transfer to Abuja so they could be in the limelight. And what happened? They got married and their husbands simply refused their tournament trips. That was the end of big dreams. It was the same with some of the other women I trained.
Interestingly, it was Suleiman who introduced the first women to golf at Kano Golf Club in 1992. Before that time, only one Japanese woman played golf in all of Kano.
“You know, in power we have women who participate in all sports,” observed Suleiman. “When it became necessary to get women to play golf, I just contacted Rachael, who was a handball player, and Amina, the former hockey goalkeeper, and got them into serious golf practice. I’m so glad they adapted very well. The result can even show this, because both women have dominated women’s golf in this country for over 10 years, ”he concluded.
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