LAHORE - The Garrison Open Golf Tournament in progress at the par 72 Garrison Golf Course with a lucrative cash purse of rupees one million for the top 33 performers in the professional section, thanks to endorsements by the corporate team of Bank Alfalah and Warid and Wateen, enters the final stage with the top ranked player of Pakistan Mohammad Shabbir, occupying the top of the leaderboard after a superb round of seven under par on Saturday, the second day of the championship. Starting the day, four strokes behind the leader M. Nazir, this star of many events of our national golf circuit, fired up his woods and irons and went round the 18 holes in gross 65 giving him an aggregate of 134 for two rounds, ten under par and helped him to acquire mental and physical control of the championship. During the round on Saturday, Shabbir had birdies on holes 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 18, an eagle on the par -5, 15th and the only stroke loss came on the 11th hole; on the other holes he had regulation pars. "I had a phenomenal round today thanks to the excellent state of the fairways and the smooth ball movement on the greens" and in that moment of glory he thanked Brig Naveed Safdar and his team for a well maintained golf course. Another top professional who put up a spectacular performance was M. Munir of Islamabad, whose score of 68 on the second day places him three strokes behind the leader and gives him an opportunity to battle it out in the final round on Sunday (today). For Munir, birdies were achieved on holes 3, 4, 7, 10, 15, 17 but the two unnecessary bogies on holes 6 and 18 were just a little gloomy. However he recouped his energy, a little later and charged up for the final go. Other competing professionals for the final line up are Yasayaa Habib and M. Nazir at 138, M. Akram at 139 and Kamran Shafiq, Matloob Ahmad, Muhammad Khurshaid, and Muhammad Siddique all at 142. At the score of 143 are Arif Ali, Shahid Javed Khan, Khalid Khan and Muhammad Akhtar. Out of the 81 professionals competing in this tournament, 48 could not qualify for the final day and only 33 will be fighting it out for final honors. However the club management did pay the outgoing players a sum of Rs 3000 each. Amongst the amateurs Waseem Rana of Karachi continues to be the dominant one followed by M. Safdar and Muhammad Rehman. Salim Raza of Gujranwala who is handicaped and is the only one allowed to use a golf cart during matches excelled during this contest and visible was his ability to swing like a champion and shoot accurately from the fairways. Hashim Sabir caused ripples of excitement by having a hole in one on the par-3, 14th and thereby winning the motorcycle offered by Ravi Motorcycles. Ladies were also on course yesterday and whereas Shahzadi Gulfam of Punjab Police dominates the gross section, Nushmiya Sukhera is upfront in the net section. At the conclusion of the tournament today, Lt. Gen Ijaz Ahmad Bakhshi will be the chief guest at the prize distribution ceremony at 5. 30 pm at Garrison Golf Club.