Daily Times

LAHORE: The inaugural Ghazala Ansari Challenge Cup Women’s Amateur Golf Championship is commencing at the Lahore Gymkhana Golf Club here on Friday (today). The prestigious event is being organised under the overall supervision of Dr Asma Afzal Shami, chairperson women’s golf of the Pakistan Golf Federation. However, it is actually being conducted by tournament director Mrs Bela Azam, ably assisted by the captain Mrs Mamoona Azam and chief referee Mrs Munazza Shaheen. Addressing a press conference at Lahore Gymkhana on Thursday, Dr Shami expressed great satisfaction at the fact that due to pro-women policies of Gen (r) Mina Hilal Hussain, PGF President, and the dedicated efforts of the PGF’s executive committee, women’s golf in Pakistan had developed to a point where seven exclusive, annual women golf championships are now included in the PGF’s annual calendar. “It is high and appropriate time to organize a series of women’s golf championships for honouring the memories of our women golf icons of yesteryears. They were the true pioneers of women’s golf in Pakistan whose epic achievements have made them our role models,” she added.

The first such event was held very successfully in Peshawar in December 2021 to honour the memory of late Ms Soni Wali. She was widely recognised as the trail blazer of women’s golf in Khyber Pakhtunkhaw province and won national championship in 1976 and 1980. The present event is the second in this ongoing series and is aimed at honouring the memory of legendary Ghazala Ansari who, by far, is the best woman golfer ever produced by Pakistan. Ghazala totally dominated women’s golf throughout the 1960’s. She stunned the golfing community by becoming the first Pakistani woman golfer to achieve a handicap of 1. It has taken the rest of women golfers more than 50 years to match this achievement. “We now have three young women: Parkha, Rimsha and Humna who earned this honour in 2021. However, Ghazala’s crowning achievement was her winning the national championship six times.

In all, more than 90 women golfers have come from all over the country to pay homage to her memory by participating in this historic event. The next three days would see some highly competitive golf, especially among the single handicappers. The chief guest will be Begum Perveen Sarwar, wife of Governor Punjab, on whose insistence, the prize distribution ceremony of the championship will be held on 20 February at the Governor’s House.