Ogundare, Obieze Lift Indian 80TH Independence Day Titles at Ikeja

The Ikeja Golf Club hosted the third edition of the Indian Independence Day Cup 2026, celebrating India's 80th anniversary with a successful tournament that saw Jimoh Ogundare and Linda Obieze emerge as the overall champions in the men's and women's categories, respectively.

The tournament attracted over 140 players from prominent golfing communities, including Ikeja, Ikoyi, and Lakowe. The competition was described as keenly contested and challenging, with the course proving particularly difficult this year. Ogundare secured the men's overall victory with 38 points on a countback, earning a trophy and a carton of vegetable oil. Wale Kalejaiye finished as the first runner-up with the same score, while Henry Gboneme took second runner-up with 37 points. Arun Sharma achieved the best Gross score with 74 points.

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This is the third edition of the Indian Independence Cup. Every year there is improvement, of course this year there’s been major improvement. This is one tournament a lot of members look forward to play in, it is keenly contested, it is very challenging. For some reason the course today was extremely challenging, you can see the highest points today was 38 points compared to the previous year where we had about 40 points.

In the women's category, Linda Obieze claimed the overall win with 36 points, followed by Abiodun Hassan as the runner-up with 33 points. Other notable winners included Tokunbo Ogunbiyi for men's Longest Drive and Chichi Alamu for the ladies' version. Zed Jituboh won both the men's Nearest to the Pin and Shot on the Green on Hole 17, with Rasaki Muritala as the runner-up.

Ejiro Ogomigo, Vice Captain of the Ikeja Golf Club, represented the Captain and praised the tournament's success, noting the significant improvements from previous years and the Indian community's efforts to make it a memorable event. Gagandeep Lakhanpal, a member of the Indian golf community, expressed joy in celebrating India's 80th anniversary with their Nigerian friends, viewing the tournament as a way to give back to the community and expressing hope for its continuation as an annual event.

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This is one of our ways to give back to the community. We are very happy with the massive turnout at the tournament. We hope to make it an annual event.