Daily Times

LAHORE: After five days of fighting match play contests and resultant weeding out of the unassertive performers, the 2nd Pakistan Golf Federation (PGF) Match Play Championship for amateur players finally concluded at the Royal Palm Golf Course with Salman Jahangir of Lahore Gymkhana emanating as the worthy champion here on Sunday. Salman defeated Hussain Hamid of Royal Palm in a 36 holes final that ended at the 32nd hole. With four holes to go, Salman was five up and that meant his adversary had to concede victory as per tradition and practice. By achieving this resplendent success, Salman secured national honours for himself, his parent club Lahore Gymkhana and brought a cheer to the life of his ailing father and golf mentor Jahangir Aziz, a golfer of merit in his younger days.

The 36 holes formidable match play encounter between Salman and Hussain teed off at 8:00 am at the Royal Palm Club Golf Course yesterday and noticeable was the exhilaration all around when these adversaries hit their opening tee shots on the first hole, a par four measuring 430 yards. Tee shots were well timed and magnificent and brought applause from their yearning fans. For the first five holes, it was all pragmatic and business like application of golfing skills and then suddenly Hussain hit an errant tee shot on the 7th hole. And Salman, who was playing like a man possessed, started to show his mastery. Two birdies helped him exhibit his excellence and this backed by regulation pars uplifted his command and control and enabled him to end up four up after the completion of the first nine holes. Thereafter, Hussain did try to chisel his game but nothing seemed to make an impression. Salman was completely in command. In no way could one imagine Hussain cutting back the lead. It was to the credit of Hussain that he scored regulation pars right from the 19th to the 31st hole. But while he was steady and impressive, his opponent continued to retaliate with brilliance. Salman finished the marathon golfing session with a superlative display of golfing expertise and surfaced as the worthy match play champion for 2021-22. At the conclusion of the championship, Lt Gen (r) Khalid Maqbool awarded prizes to the winners along with Brig (r) Ajaz Ahad Khan of PGF.