Former Nigeria International Peter Odemwingie popularly known as Osaze has decided to choose a career in golf after putting an end to his professional career as a soccer player.
The 43-year-old who last featured for the Super Eagles of Nigeria at the 2014 FIFA World Cup has completed his studies and has graduated as a Professional Golf Association member
“I’m proud because I challenged myself not only to apply effort in a sport but also academically,” he says.
“I hope my story motivates people to follow suit, whether that’s through The PGA or any other form of studies.”
While speaking on how he developed a strong love for Golf as a sport, the former West Brom attacker said he started playing Golf at the end of his career at the Premier League side
“I started playing just at the end of my West Brom days because a few of the boys played, and I could see the excitement they had for it,” explains Odemwingie, who retired from football in 2018 after a stint in Indonesia.
“They would go and play on a Tuesday after training, and they’d have their golf gear and be talking about it, but I couldn’t understand it because the golf vocabulary is so different from anything else.
“Then on one of the pre-season training trips with West Brom, Roy Hodgson took us to a golf resort and people were doing putting and playing full rounds on days off, so I was just passing by the range, and I thought I’d try and hit some balls. I was wearing slippers, but I hit a few, and I loved the sound and watching the ball fly. It was downhill so it carried further. I thought, ‘OK, there’s something in this’.”
Born in Tashkent – now the capital of Uzbekistan – when it was part of the Soviet Union, he moved to his father’s home country of Nigeria at the age of two but got his secondary school education in Russia, from where his mother hails.
Odemwingie bagged a total of 10 goals in 63 caps, his last coming in the game between Nigeria and Bosnia at the 2014 World Cup scoring the lone goal in a group stage game.
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