Daily Times

LAHORE: The competitive golfing activity in the allied events of 10th JA Zaman Memorial Open Golf Championship concluded here on Wednesday. From Thursday (today) it will be a testing time for 100 top golf professionals of the country who have assembled at the historic Lahore Gymkhana Golf Course from all golf courses of the country for a grand show of their golfing expertise. Some of the contenders like Shabbir Iqbal, Muhammad Matloob, Hamza Amin and Ahmed Baig are heralded and rated highly and predictions, assessments and statistics seems to favour them. As for the concluded segments like senior professionals and junior professionals, visible was ample rivalry amongst the top contenders and in particular in the senior professionals race it was Muhammad Tariq (Islamabad) who surfaced as the prime performer with two rounds scores of 71 and 72 and an aggregate of 143, one under par. The runner-up position was achieved by Zulfiqar Masih of Lahore Gymkhana who made a monumental effort to overshadow the victor, but in the end had to settle for a position behind Tariq. Zulfiqar was beaten by one stroke and the loss was attributable to the last putt which ended up at the edge of the hole without falling in. His scores for the two rounds were 73 and 71 and a total of 144.

Other notable performers of senior professional section were Irfan Mehmood (Rawalpindi), Muhammad Akram and Muhammad Javed of Lahore Gymkhana. Irfan had a score of 146 while Akram and Javed were bracketed at a score of 149. Those contenders who ended up at a score 150 were Abdul Hamid (Islamabad) and Aurangzeb Khan (Karachi). Results of junior professionals’ section are: Ashaas Amjad (Airmen Golf Club) came first, M Sahil (Peshawar) second; Umar Shahzad (Kharian) third and Rehan Babar (Garrison) fourth. The grand golfing show of 10th JA Zaman Memorial Open Golf Championship carrying a prize money of Rs 7.5 million tees off from Thursday at the majestic Lahore Gymkhana Golf Course.