After the weeding out process was completed at the end of first two rounds on Saturday, a total of 50 accomplished golfers stood as contenders and eligible to compete in the final laps of honour in the Pakistan Golf Federation endorsed 58th National Amateur Golf Championship that entered the final phase at the Garrison Golf Course here. At the end of the third day in this four rounds championship, Abdul Zahoor played a round of gross 70 to end up at an aggregate score of 216 (level par) and thereby emerged as the leader, with the final 18 holes left to go. Zahoor was virtually faultless yesterday and all through the third round of 18 holes he displayed praiseworthy control over his golf swing and also over his temperament. At no stage was he awed by the presence of many combatants who were striving for superiority. And these combatants were many. The predominant one was Zulfiqar Ali. Zulfiqar remained phenomenal in his application of golfing skills and played each hole on merit. This effort fetched him a par round score of gross 72 on the third day and his aggregate score for the three days added up to 217. Also aplaudable was the performance of Wazir Ali who performed to perfection with a round of gross 68 and was placed at an aggregate of 218, two strokes behind the leader.
There were quite a few who also displayed steady play. Zohaib Asif was one and Salman Akhter and Taimoor Khan two others. Zohaib was at a score of 220, while Salman and Taimur were at 221. Others in line were Ghazanfar Mehmood at 221, Raja Israr at 222, Umer Khokhar at 223, Robin Bagh at 224, Ashiq Hussain (Multan) at 224 and Mohsen Zafar at same score.
The seniors completed their final round yesterday. Rustam Chatta was first followed by Waqar Ahmed and M Shafi. Asif Mehdi was fourth, Javed A Khan fifth and Fakhar Imam sixth.