Unusual golf-related story time, this one coming from Kaduna in Nigeria. The African country is hardly the centre of the golfing world. Neither is it a leader in medicine, apart from maybe the herbal type.
However, the two professions have intertwined in the most bizarre way, if a report by Punch news outlet is to be believed.
Apparently a pair of identical twins, Pam and Gyang Dareng, are ready to abandon their promising medical careers for the life of a professional golfer.
The club-loving duo are graduates of the University of Jos and doing excellent work helping others at the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Centre.
However, three months ago, they resigned from their jobs to play golf. They are among 51 amateurs ready to take the step into the pro ranks by competing in the Professional Golfers Association of Nigeria Qualifying School in Abuja.
And seemingly, their medical background will help boost golf in the country. How? Well, Pam was quoted by the publication as saying:
“We knew golf before we came across medicine. It is a matter of pursuing what we have always loved. We know if we qualify we would make becoming professional golfers fashionable and at least more people would give professional golfing a second thought. We were never caddies and professional golf is not for caddies.â€
If you’re willing to think deeply about it, you may find some logic in that statement. However, it’s difficult not to feel that the concept of qualified doctors taking up golf does little to banish the sport’s elitist reputation in that part of the world.
Hi Andy! Amazing story! I guess what’s really striking for you and me is that, as qualified doctors in a country where there is presumably a great need, they should want to abandon medecine in favour of golf. You and I were brought up in the home of golf – in fact near the very heart of the game – where kids dream of becoming professional golfers but it’s also a country which traditionally reveres doctors, teachers and lawyers. (At fourteen, when I dreamed recklessly of being a professional golfer, my parents wanted me to be a doctor or a teacher.) Actually to become a doctor and give it up to become a professional golfer (no disrespect to professional golfers, who are a fine body of men and women) runs totally against the Scottish work-duty-responsibility ethic, even if you could earn much more money by doing it. Makes one appreciate the NHS heart surgeons who would rather save lives than pars. Best LyallD