Two of Namibia’s top young golfers Jessica Dreesbeimdieke and Likius Nande leave for England on Friday to participate in the British Open Junior Golf Tournament.
The two golfers, who are both 15 years old, have been sponsored by Nedbank Namibia, as part of their overall sponsorship of junior golf in Namibia for the past few years.
It is also the second time that Nedbank Namibia’s sponsorship has made it possible for Namibian golfers to compete at the British Junior Open, with the first sponsorship coming two years ago when Stephanus Bonifatius represented Namibia.
The managing director of Nedbank Namibia, Erastus Hoveka, said he was proud of their involvement in junior golf in Namibia.
“We have always professed our wish to establish an alliance philosophy as opposed to a mere sponsorship philosophy. I am very proud of the partnerships that we have established, and none more so than the alliance that we managed to forge with the Namibian Junior Golf Foundation since 2007,” he said.
“Among the many joint highlights that we have managed to achieve, I feel a great sense of pride when young Stephanus was selected on merit to represent our country at the Junior British Open two years ago. He has since gone on to carve out a name for himself as one of Namibia’s current crop of exceptional young golfers an I have every reason to believe that Likius and Jessica will follow suit in the years to come,” he added.
The president of the Namibia Junior Golf Foundation Trevor Britten said that the foundation had grown tremendously since Nedbank came on board as a sponsor.
“When we started the Namibia Junior Golf Foundation eight year ago we were struggling, but now we are thriving. Currently five of our top eight senior players are junior golfers and so far this year the junior golfers have won all the tournaments on the Namibian calendar,” he said.
“Namibia is now the second strongest golfing nation in Africa and this is all due to the development programmes that we have put in place to coach our youngsters,” he added.
Dreesbeimdieke has been in great form so far this year, winning several junior as well as senior tournaments on the Namibian circuit. She also competed at the Asia Pacific World Schools Tournament in Australia in April where she came fourth overall.
Nande has only been competing for two years but has made rapid progress and has won several junior tournaments in Windhoek, Swakopmund and Henties Bay over the past two years.
Dreesbeimdieke said they hoped to make their country proud.
“This is an amazing opportunity and Likias and I are very excited. Hopefully we can show that Namibia can produce golfers that can compete against the best in the world,” she said.
The Junior British Golf Championships will take place from July 16 to 18 at the Fairhaven Golf Club in England.