JEDDAH, 8 January 2008 — The Riyadh golf community was in state of shock over the untimely death of promising junior golfer Mansour Al-Mansour.
The lanky Mansour, 18, one of the four golf-playing Saudi siblings and member of the Saudi junior team, was killed in a car accident on Riyadh-Makkah Highway near Riyadh on Saturday.
Mansour was looking forward to representing Saudi Arabia for the first time in an international competition later this month at Dirab Golf Club. Instead, he ended up a cold statistic, the victim of a senseless killing in the increasingly violent and lethal road accidents in the Kingdom.
Arab News sister publication Asharq Al-Awsat had reported in Saudi Arabia a person dies every hour as a result of car accidents and in the Gulf region thousands are dying daily because of these accidents. These statistics are truly horrifying, the report said.
Mansour’s death was the latest in a line of Saudi sports people who died violent deaths on the road. On Dec. 30, 2004 Saudi soccer star Saad Muhammad Al-Dossary of Al-Hilal and the national team was killed in a car accident while on the way home to Riyadh from the Eastern Province. Yesterday, Arab News learned three football referees were killed in a vehicular accident in Madinah. “Condolences to the family of Mansour, from myself and on behalf of the Saudi Golf Committee members and all golfers in the Kingdom,” said Khaled Abunayyan, president of SGC.
“We pray for the family to overcome this tragic accident,” he added.
Mansour and younger brother Abdulrahman, 16, both made the second team seeing action in the 28th Pan Arab Golf Championship to be hosted by the Kingdom Jan. 20-23. Under the rules of the Arab Golf Federation the host country has the option to field a junior team in addition to the regular men’s team in the annual competition.
Mansour’s elder brother Fahad,30, is on the four-man Saudi squad that will try to wrest the crown from team and individual champions Bahrain. Kingdom No. 1 Othman Almulla, who won the Qatar Open on Saturday to qualify to play for the $2.5 million Commercial Bank Qatar Masters, a co-sanctioned event of the European and Asian PGA tours, captain Ali Balhareth and Ali Al-Sahli are the other members of the team.
