Daily Times

LAHORE: The first round of the 39th Governor’s Cup Golf Championship, being contested at the Lahore Gymkhana Club Golf Course, turned out to be a remarkable one in terms of excellent play and sparkling application of skills here on Friday. Quite a few single digit handicappers revealed their capabilities by hitting powerful tee shots on all par four and par fives. They supplemented this strength with marvelous approach shots from the fairways to the greens, thereby making putting undemanding and trouble free. Out of the twenty front runners, the golfer who surfaced as the incredible one was Usman Akram Sahi (handicap five) of Defence Raya Golf Club, who became visible as a strong contender through a caliber loaded golfing skills application. With birdies on holes 6,8,15,16 and 17, twelve regulation pars and just two bogies, he had a gross score of 69 and a net score of 64, eight under par and this undeniably was a dream score for him. Though Usman was placed honourably on top of the leaderboard, his adversaries were suitably positioned with masterly scores against their names. Farid Maneka (12 handicapper of Lahore Gymkhana) was just one stroke behind at a score of net 65. He also went through the first round with admirable display of his capabilities. Three young ones bunched together at a score of net 67 were Hussain Atta, Behram Khan and Abdullah Farooqi (all from Lahore Gymkhana). Their performance in the first round was noteworthy and all three looked determined to establish themselves as golfers of merit. No doubt the first round’s performance can be graded as excellent and their score of net 67, five under par, reflected ability and temperament. Besides these five top contenders for the Governor’s Cup title, the other forceful ones who made their presence felt were Ahmed Ibrahim (Royal Palm) Nowsherwan Alam (Lahore Garrison) and Mohsen Zafar (Lahore Gymkhana) and these three contenders were bracketed at a net score of 69, three under par and were five strokes behind the leader, Usman Sahi. Some more competitors whose performance deserved a mention here were Dawar Lashari, Ghulam Qadir, Hamza Kardar, Saad Habib Wasey Ali and Salman Jehangir. All six were together at a score of net 70.