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Nigerian golfer Abdullahi Ali who died on Wednesday, has been buried in Kaduna.

Ali died in an
automobile accident 30 kilometres from Minna in Niger State. Another
Nigerian golfer, Christian Godfrey and a caddy simply identified as
Bernard also died in the crash.

Reports say the
trio were on their way to Minna to participate in the Minna Cantonment
Professional Golf Championship when one of the tyres of the vehicle in
which they were travelling burst forcing the vehicle into a head-on
collision with another vehicle.

Abdullahi Ali was one of Africa’s hottest professional golfers.

Last month, playing
in his first tour outside Nigeria this year, he blew away an
experienced field of golfers to win the Moanda Golf Championship, which
took place at Manga Golf Club in Gabon.

With him at that tournament were two other Nigerians, Basiru Bakare and Gift Willy, who jointly finished in sixth place.

Among the players Ali scalped were five-time champion and Gabon’s number one, Brice Moukagni.

The young golfer
was understandably ecstatic following his achievement, dedicating his
victory to the golf family in Nigeria which he said had been of immense
support to him.

One month after his
feat in Gabon, Ali won the Cameroon International Golf Championship. It
was a remarkable achievement for someone who turned professional in
2005.

His triumph in
Cameroon took place over a week ago. Four days after, he was dead,
throwing the golf community in Nigeria into mourning. Sam Emehelu, one
of Nigeria’s leading writers on golf who has travelled on several tours
with Ali, described his death as painful.

“News of his death
came as a shock to me. It was unbelievable because I could not imagine
that a player that I was with only a few days in Yaoundé during the
Cameroon Open had passed on. It is indeed a big blow to golf in Nigeria
because he and Godfrey were two of the leading golfers in Nigeria,”
Emehelu said.

Great professionals

Basiru Bakare, Ali’s close friend who was in Gabon and Cameroon with him is saddened by the loss.

“This is a huge
loss to me personally; he was a close friend. As a matter of fact we
shared a room in Yaoundé last week. This is a big, big blow,” he said,

With Ali’s burial,
a chapter has been closed on one of the most exciting periods in the
annals of professional golfing in Nigeria. Godfrey is yet to be buried.
Golf faithful await details of his burial from his family. Like Ali,
Godfrey who was an indigene of Edo State and an accomplished golfer.

He turned
professional in 2002 and three years later became the first Nigerian
professional golfer to feature on the European tour when he was invited
to participate in the Omega Masters tournament in Switzerland.

On the Nigeria
tour, he won a number of tournaments including the IBB Open where he
holds the course record, the ULO Consultants, the Pinnacle Open and the
President Open, which he won last in November 2009. Godfrey was a
member of the Nigerian contingent at the World Cup of Golf qualifier,
which took place in Malaysia last year.

Dominic Andrew, PGAN Nigeria Tour tournament director says Godfrey and Ali will be missed.

“We don’t know for
how long but we would have to mourn these great individuals. We
commensurate with their families and pray that the Lord grant them the
fortitude to bear this great loss. It is a great loss to the golf
family and the country at large. We will miss them a lot,” he said.

As a mark of
respect for the dead golfers, the Minna tournament, which they were
going to participate in before they died, has been postponed. In a
related development, the body of professional golfers in Nigeria, the
Professional Golfers Association, says it will organise an annual
tournament in honour of Ali.