Former Premier League and Nigeria star Peter Odemwingie is now a PGA professional golfer after finishing his football career.
Odemwingie, 42, played for several top-flight Premier League clubs, including West Brom, Cardiff City, and Stoke City. It was during his time at the Hawthorns that Odemwingie first dabbled in golf. It was also the club where he embarrassingly turned up to QPR's training ground in 2013 after trying to seal a late January transfer only for the deal to go pear-shaped. "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,” explained Odemwingie to the PGA website.
"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 to 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’.”
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After finishing his football career with Madura United in Indonesia in 2018, Odemwingie enrolled on the Professional Golf Studies course at the University of Birmingham and he graduated last month. The ex-striker hopes his story can inspire others. “I’m proud because I challenged myself not only to apply effort in a sport but also academically,” said Odemwingie. “I hope my story motivates people to follow suit, whether that’s through The PGA or any other form of studies.
“The course takes some effort to accomplish. I hear that people do quit halfway through because of the volume of it and the pressure that comes with it. It wasn’t easy, but I think the character I developed from football helped. I’ve had those times when I had a goal drought and didn’t score for five or six months, but you have to keep going – sometimes you just have to endure.”
Peter Odemwingie is targeting the PGA senior tour (Getty Images)Odemwingie says he's targeting competition in the senior PGA Tour. "My eyes are on the senior tour in the future because I definitely know there is a player in me," he revealed.
"This game offers us longevity and if you stay healthy you can play for a long time, as someone like Gary Player shows. Hopefully when I’m old with a lot of grey hairs I’ll be able to tell a pretty cool story about my time playing golf.”
Golf and football aren't Odemwingie's only talents either - he also sings and plays the guitar on TikTok. He has close to 50,000 TikTok followers, and he also posts golf content.
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