Saturday 27 / April / 2024
Muscat: After the phenomenal success of the Term I of the NBO-OGC Ladies’ Programme in 2015, the Oman Golf Committee (OGC) launched Term II at the Muscat Hills Golf and Country Club here recently.
The second spell of the programme, which is being conducted with the support from the National Bank of Oman (NBO), has 29 Omani ladies taking golfing lessons from a Muscat Hills-designated coach for a period of six weeks.
According to information received from OGC on Monday, the programme is part of OGC’s initiatives to produce future Omani women golfing champions.
The number of participants has increased from Term I, which had attracted 26 players.
A total of 19 ladies from Term I have graduated to Term II and they have been pooled in the Silver Programme and have been joined by 10 new learners, who form the new Bronze Programme.
“The Silver Term of the ladies’ programme has so far proved to be a great success. The ladies seem to be really enjoying their lessons and playing golf. A few ladies are showing some promise -- Fatma Al Maskiry, Raja Al Hammadi and Aziza Al Habsi are a few who stand out as having more talent than the others. Their understanding of the game and awareness is improving greatly,” Jade Lucas, programme coach, said.
She added: “The Bronze Term is also looking strong, with Iman in particular looking like she really could show a lot of potential. Maybe the most out of all of the ladies so far, and she is the youngest at just 13 years old. The greatest thing to come out of this programme, in my opinion, is the increase in junior participation.”
Sameera Al Zadjali, one of the participants of the ladies’ programme, said: “The course is amazing, it gave me the chance to learn and play golf, a game that my family is playing now. So now we have a game that we can all enjoy together. I am planning to continue playing this beautiful game and do more practice, put it in my weekly programme and enter competitions.”
Maitha Al Omeiri, another participant, believes the programme has helped her attain a whole new level.
“The golf programme has made me discover myself on a different level and made me realise that I have capabilities outside my field and I am able to do more than what is expected of myself. In the initial days, it was a surprise for me to be interested in golf, but now I understand the approach. You never know what you are capable of unless you try,” she said.
Interestingly, after the ladies completed the first term, they signed up eight of their children to the OGC’s Junior Programme and six of them are girls.Following this development, more ladies have shown interest in enrolling their kids in the junior programme.
Participant Abeer Al Zubaidi said: “My golf experience at Muscat Hills has been very interesting. I plan to continue with the game and hope to be a professional golfer one day. Also, I shall enroll my two daughters to join the junior programme.”
Hailing the OGC’s initiative, Dr. Asma Al Naamani, an avid participant, said: “I would like to express my appreciation for all the golf lessons. I found out about the NBO sponsorship for the programme thought it was a great initiative. Being a mother and also engaged in a full-time job makes it stressful at times. Since I joined this programme, I learned that I could find a new thing that got me interested. I look forward each week to practice and learn new skills.”
