Daily Times

LAHORE: Muhammad Munir won the 8th JA Zaman Memorial Open Golf Championship at the Lahore Gymkhana Club Golf Course here on Sunday. The final concluding round yesterday transmuted to a rather appalling and frightful confrontation of golfing skills between golf playing maestros like highly experienced Munir, sprightly Ahmad Baig, mature Matloob Ahmad, sharp Muhammad Naeem and the admiringly competent Hamza Amin. That Munir of Rawalpindi prevailed over these creative ones was due to his combative prowess and remarkable neurotic control. His shot making was on target and in particular absolutely distinctive was his control over the concluding nine holes. His menacing and unnerving adversary lost the race on the par-4, 14th hole which he double bogeyed and to his good fortune Matloob, Naeem and Hamza committed the most minor of oversights in putting which turned out to be facilitators for the victorious one. Munir was star performer of this championship and richly deserved to win.

The top ten professionals in the championship: M Munir (Rawalpindi) 280, Ahmad Baig (PAF Skyview) 282, Muhammad Shabbir (Islamabad) 282, Matloob Ahmad (Lahore Garrison) 283, Mohammad Naeem (Peshawar) 283, Hamza Amin (Islamabad) 283, Moazzam Sadique (DHA) 284, Mohammad Zubair (Karachi Golf Club) 284, Shahid Javed Khan (Gymkhana) 284 and Mohammad Nazir (Rawalpindi)285. In the race for honours in the amateur category, Ahmad Zafar Hayat (Gymkhana) won the first gross with a score of 148, the second gross went to Hussain Hamid (Royal Palm). His score was 154. The third gross winner was Salman Jahangir (Gymkhana) and his score was 155. The net section winner was Ahmad Jibran followed by Ali Nadeem and Muhammad Omer Farooq. All three had similar scores of net 143 and the positions were decided based on better scores over the last 18 holes.