Daily Times

LAHORE: A golf course arena is one sizeable and enormous component of the game of golf and Pakistan is lucky to have inherited prominent historical golf playing areas like the Karachi Golf Course, Lahore Gymkhana Golf Course, Railway Golf Club Golf Course, Peshawar Golf Course and Rawalpindi Golf Course. Subsequently many golf courses were added at the time of development of cantonments and still more stemmed and emerged through the efforts of DHA and Bahria Town. And making headway now is the Rumanza Golf Course in Multan which is designed by former world golf champion Nick Faldo. As of today, Pakistan has a total of 48 golf courses.

The Pakistan Golf Federation coordinates and overseas the golf activities in the country in close collaboration with provincial bodies like Sindh Golf Association, Punjab Golf Association, Khyber Pakhtunkhaw Golf Association and Balochistan Golf Association. And each golf club is aligned with these associations and the PGF. An important part of the oversight is lending technical support to the golf clubs so as to facilitate their smooth functioning. In this connection, the PGF has been forthcoming in providing technical items like flag poles, flags, sand rakes, hole cups, hole cup rings, hole diggers and greens speed measuring stimpmeters. All these items are essential for golf course and add significant utility to the golf course facilities.

Lately, the Covid-19 pandemic has proved to be a big impediment in the holding of premier golf tournaments. Even though the PGF had announced its golf calendar for the year 2021-22 but Covid-19 related restraints called for a review of the dates. After judicious thinking and sagacious interaction with the stakeholders, necessary amendments to the golf calendar stand appropriately changed and announced. DHA Independance Day Golf Cup Open, a highly rated championship, was successfully held at the DHA Golf Course Karachi from August 26th to 29th with all COVID sops in place.

Another change is in respect of the Al Burq Open Golf Championship. This will now be held from November 5th to 7th at the Mangla Golf Course. As for the famed CJCSC Open Golf Championship, the dates are November 10th to 14th. New dates for Governors’ Cup Open are November 26th to 28th and venue for both these cardinal and championships is Karachi Golf Club Golf Course. Hopefully this ends a lot of uncertainty and brings relief to professional golfers of the country who rely on open tournaments for their livelihood.

The Chief of Naval Staff Golf Championship was the inaugural open golf championship of the calendar 2021-22 and this was contested with combativeness and belligerence at the remarkably exceptional Karachi Golf Club Golf Course by professionals like Shabbir Iqbal ,the golden boy of Pakistan golf, Ahmed Baig, the seasoned Waheed Baloch and many other proficient and capable contenders who did not emerge as front runners but managed to earn good money by achieving respectable positions on the leaderboard.

The month of September is full of golf competitions that will create interesting situations for golfers of ability and calibre. Under spotlight will be skillful amateur exponents like Yashal Shah,SaimShazli, Hamza Shikoh, ArsalanShikoh and Omar Khalid in the 11th President SGA Cup 2021 to be contested at the Karachi Golf Course from September 3rd to 5th.Hopefully these men of merit and some less heralded ones who seek recognition through such championships will come up with feats of prowess that will be remembered for a long time. And to follow will be the 2nd PGF Inter Club Golf Championship which has turned out to be clash between clubs of distinction of each province. Although it is a team affair but technically the individual matches are the ones that will add real flavor to the occasion where team composition consists of top level amateurs, accomplished senior amateurs, women and teenaged boys and girls aspiring for ascendancy as golf champions.

Towards the end of September the golf scene moves to Lahore where the singular and remarkable PGF Match Play Championship will be fought out at the Royal Palm Golf and Country Club Golf Course. In this contest of the foremost and unrivalled ones of national golf, one will witness deeds of many greats of our national golf scene where shot making will reach a pitch of automatic perfection. With the support of the PGF exceptional progress is on the cards in the golf arenas of Pakistan.