This must be the bottom line. Sunny Obazu Ojeagbase was achingly sweet and polite that he ought to have been canonised by the Pope. But SO, as he was fondly known by several admirers, was more than this. He was equally brave.

I was still studying Mass Communication at the Auchi Polytechnic when feats of SO’s bravery were already filtering in from the village. This was a man, who had the audacity to walk away from the Army to pitch tents with the nation’s sports journalism without batting an eyelid. Not just this, but he turned sports writing from one boring literature to an art of uncommon prose laced with savvy and panache.

At once, I knew it by heart that I must reach him after my term at Auchi.
SO had just established the Sports Souvenir and Complete Football. Seeing him then was like a challenging ‘moon walk,’ especially for greenhorns. But me… I saw the ‘Big Man’ in such easy fashion.

Reason? His father’s house in Owan West Edo village of Uzebba was a shout from my father’s compound at Avbiosi.
Well, if I thought the village thing was going to buy me some freebies, I got it all wrong. SO had no time for tribe, religion or race. He hated small talks that could have snowballed into asking how people were faring in the village. All he craved for was performance. Like Nike’s mantra, ‘Just do it’ and be sure to be a great pal of SO.

Ojeagbase exercised prudence and was simplistic to the point of absurdity. He hated it when you were hell bent on doing what others were doing. He got easily infuriated when your ‘story hunting’ had to do with press conferences where free foods and booze and ‘keske’ were shared. ‘Keske’ took the place of ‘brown envelope’ at the time… you really want me to spell this out?

SO was always telling us, his reporters then … just four of us… myself, late Dave Enechukwu, Frank Ilaboya and Phil, that we were a weekly paper and that our stories should reflect exclusivity.

Above everything, SO respected the power of faith. Interestingly, coincidence was a concept he did not entirely trust. He believed true success was the experience of the miraculous. He mentioned it always that if you lacked guts, glory could be far from you. He wanted you to apply guts so you could do new things.

If not for SO, may be, I would not have been writing golf today.

I could remember when he called me aside at the close of work one day and asked if I felt comfortable writing football like every other reporter. He mentioned that since I had knowledge of tennis and golf… two games I picked up from my birth place in Ibadan, I should dwell on them and be the real master of golf writing. This prophecy has come to pass.
What an irony of fate.

SO passed away in Atlanta, home to the world’s best golf course, the Augusta National, where world masters of the game duel yearly.

In golf parlance, we could have mentioned that SO had played his final round… He had putted out. May he stay close to the Angels.

• AKHIGBE is the Editor-In-Chief of Nigeria Golf People, a fortnightly golf magazine.