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Nooh Badea Al Esbai has become the first Bahraini to represent an American university in the highly-competitive college golf tournament scene in the US … following in the footsteps of some of the sport’s greatest players.
The 19-year-old sophomore at The University of Tampa in Florida will take part in the prestigious National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Golf Championships.
After powering through the qualifying rounds, Al Esbai was one of only 13 players chosen for the Tampa Spartans team out of 70 participants and will soon start representing the university in tournaments against other institutions.
He said: “I love the challenges golf brings, every round is unique and every shot is different which makes the game so unpredictable. I just got hooked on the game after playing it a few times.”
Al Esbai first stepped on to a golf course at the tender age of four. His family, dad Badea, and mother, Eman Ali, and his sisters, Ibn Khuldoon National School pupils, Noor, 15, and Naya, nine, live in Saar.
“My father is a big fan of the game, plays casually and used to take me to the golf course with him,” he explained.
The youngster was enrolled in the Dubai Creek Golf Club’s Tiny Tigers sessions when the family lived in the UAE and says he started playing ‘proper golf’ at the Royal Golf Club (RGC) following a move back to Bahrain in 2006.
“I was always a part of the junior academy and was coached by most of the golf professionals at the club, as well as Steven Hoey, the Bahrain national team coach,” he added.
He competed in numerous local tournaments and collected an array of trophies along the way, advancing to the Junior World Tournament in Thailand as well as the Qatar Open held in Doha.
He was selected and played for the national team for six years and gained experience in tournaments around the Middle East and other regions.
Any player with a golfing handicap of 2 or better can sign up for the college tryouts leaving the coach to pick the top 13. They began at the beginning of September and after eight rounds of golf, Al Esbai made the cut and is now regarded as a scratch golfer, playing like a professional off a 0 handicap.
He said: “I have been constantly going to the gym in the mornings and then to the golf course to practice between my classes.
“I couldn’t be any prouder to be representing Bahrain – it is always an honour for me wherever I’m involved in golf tournaments.
“I would like to thank my parents and family for giving me the opportunity to pursue my dreams, and the Bahrain Golf Federation and Olympic committee for their ongoing support and believing in me throughout this entire journey.”
He hopes his success in the classroom and on the golf course will help inspire other young sports lovers. “Always follow your dreams because you never know how far you can go if you try your best to succeed,” he said.
The NCAA regulates athletes of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organisations and individuals that organises the athletic programmes of many colleges and universities in the US and Canada.
The Tampa Spartans compete in the Sunshine State Conference and are pitted against other teams from around Florida and its neighbouring states.
Up-and-coming tournaments include the Buccaneer Invitational, Panther Invitational, Rollins Invitational, Warner Invitational, Webber Invitational and the Saint Leo Invitational and Al Esbai is also set to play in a series of individual tournaments.
The aim of all college players is to make it into the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships, the top annual competition in US men’s collegiate golf.
It is a strokeplay/matchplay competition with the top eight teams after 54 holes of strokeplay being seeded and concluding with an eight-team matchplay play-off. There is also an award for the lowest scoring individual competitor.
Many individual winners have gone on to have successful careers on the PGA Tour, including 1961 champion Jack Nicklaus, 1967 champion Hale Irwin, 1996 champion Tiger Woods, and three-time champions Ben Crenshaw and Phil Mickelson.
