Daily Times

LAHORE: The Pakistan Golf Federation (PGF) backed Smart City 62nd National Amateur Golf Championship concluded at the historic Lahore Gymkhana Golf Course after four days of enervating golf which fetched Mohammad Shoaib a reassuring reward here on Saturday. Completely an unassuming youngster, Shoaib, belonging to a humble background, took up golf as a career a few years back and devoted hours and hours of effort, year after year to fine tune his golfing capabilities mentored by his coach Malik Shahbaz. The endeavour was filled with a yearning for success and that finally came his way as he emerged triumphant by winning the national golf title of Pakistan.

In this championship for amateurs, out of the aspiring players, some of the contenders were heralded and rated highly and predictions, assessments and statistics seemed to favour them. However, the championship became a model one for young Shoaib. He was unquestionably the player of the championship and certainly a formidable one. From the very word go, there was no doubt about his win at Lahore Gymkhana. He led every round and though strong ones like Salman Jehangir, Qasim Ali Khan, three leading players from Sri Lanka and one from Egypt were there to challenge him, he made steady progress over each of the four rounds to surface as the victor and national amateur title holder. His success is attributable to four rounds scores of 71,73,77 and 73 and an aggregate of 294, six over par. In between, his shot making was excellent and was backed by an impressive short game.

The runner-up of this national event was Salman Jehangir, a national player of prowess and dexterity, who lost to Shoaib by a margin of two strokes. During the four rounds Salman had splendid scores. First round score was 72, followed by 75, 74 and final days 75. Aggregate score for the championship was 296 as against 294 by Shoaib. The third position was achieved by Ahmed Zafar Hayat. Ahmed is a player of merit and did manage to cause a scare amongst his adversaries by playing to perfection. In the end, however, a few missed putts took him towards the third position. His score was 299.

Other performers were Sameer Iftikhar 300, Qasim Ali Khan 301, Hussain Hamid 302, Deann Naime (Egypt) 302, Noman Asghar 303, Nouman Ilyas 304 and Sri Lankas Chalitha Pushpika 304. The net category winner was Sameer Iftikhar with a net score of 280. The second net was Noman Asghar 283 while the third net was Ghulam Qadir with 290.

The proud winner of the women’s title was Parkha Ijaz with scores of 77, 76 and 76 and a total of 229. The runner-up was Aania Farooq Syed. Her aggregate score was 242. The third gross was won by Rimsha Ijaz. Her score was 247. The net section winner was Humna Amjad with a net score of 227. The second net went to Bushra Fatima and third net to Amina Tiwana. The best senior amateur was Sardar Murad and best senior in net section was Rashid Akbar.