NBO to help nurture next generation of Omani golfers

Muscat: Oman’s plans to create the next generation of home-grown golfers have received the backing of the National Bank of Oman (NBO), which will be taking the game to schools in the Sultanate.
“This is a joint initiative between ourselves and Golf Oman to promote golf in the community and bring the game to children and get them involved,” said David White, marketing and event manager for NBO. “Like Golf Oman, we also want to promote the sport within the community and our key driver is to get youth to participate in such events.”
NBO has already visited four schools in Oman—Azzan Bin Qais, Al Sultan School, the Royal Flight School and Al Sahwa School—but this is just the start of their initiative.
“We taught different grades of students, and in some of the schools, we’ve identified schoolchildren with talent, and now we’re trying to get them to take up golf at golf clubs,” he added. “We need to further develop golf within the country because there aren’t many Omani players taking up golf at a young age.”
“You have to start educating people when they are young, ideally around the time they are about 13 or 14 years old,” explained White. “The ones that are going to play sports in the future need to be taught now, because there are a lot of older players, who represent the national team, but there is quite a gap in the youth ranks.”
At present, Oman only has about a 1000 registered golfers across all age groups, compared with much larger numbers in the hundreds of thousands in more traditional golfing nations, such as South Africa, Australia, Great Britain and the United States.
White is positive that spreading the sport at the grassroots level will encourage more young Omanis to take up the sport in the future.
“There are different demographics across these nations, so that does make a difference, but we are really trying to focus on not just private schools, but roll this out across the country,” said White. “Now the schools are going to be closed for the summer, but we want to resume this around September or October across all the other regions as well.”
“The first school we went to—Azzan bin Qais—had 20 students, who wanted to sign up for golf lessons immediately after we finished the first round of lessons with them so that is a very good sign,” he added.
“Golf Oman represents all of the clubs in Oman, so we’re trying to get them to play golf, wherever is closest and convenient for them. If Al Mouj Golf is closer to them than Ghala is, for example, it’s more likely they will go to a place that is near their homes.”