ISLAMABAD: The first FEGA Women’s Amateur Golf Championship was contested over three days at the Bahria Town Muree Expressway Golf Course and concluded here Monday after a sharp competitive activity that was exclusively meant for women golfers. The heartening development is that women golfers of the country are certainly on the increase and with the passionate efforts of Zeenat Ayesha, Dr Afzal Shami, FEGA and Pakistan Golf Federation, the activity has started to yield classy young golfers like Aania Farooq of Karachi, Rimsha Ijaz of Lahore and Parkha Ijaz also of Lahore. And in this inaugural championship, the participation of women was overwhelming and so was the support of the sponsors. After the formal opening by Ayesha, the tournament director, the championship went into a competitive mode and champions like Parkha and Rimsha launched themselves to demonstrate powerful shots off the tees and back that up with crisp approach shots. To facilitate the relatively new golfers the events were divided into gold, silver and bronze categories. After a tremendous display of golfing talent and expertise, Atya Anjum succeeded in picking up the second gross prize in the bronze category. The runner-up was Saleem Akhter and gross winner was Ayesha Moazzam. While these women were the top ones in the race for gross honours, those who won in net category were Ayesha Hamid (second runner-up net), Mina Zafar (net runner-up) and Falah Zara (net winner). In the silver category competition, second runner-up gross was Rafaqat Abjad, runner-up gross Tehmina Rashid and winner gross Shehzadi Gulfam. The performers in silver category net were Faiza Imtiaz (second runner-up net), Dr Shaheen Irfan (runner-up net) and Ayesha Fizza (net winner). The gold category was a battle amongst the skilled ones and noticeable was the quality of their hitting and most importantly their battle hardened nerves. The competition was close. And after a close fight, winner in net category was Rimsha Ijaz and Aruba Ali was runner-up net. The gross section top one in gold category was Ania followed by Parkha who lost to Ania by one stroke. The senior section’s best one was Yasmeen Mubarak with a score of 53 over 9 holes. At the conclusion of the championship, Tahira Raza, former president of the First Women’s Bank, distributed prizes among the top performers. Published in Daily Times, October 16th 2018.