LAHORE - Lahore concluded the day first with full honors accumulating 12 points as against five points gathered by the Karachi team in the Legends Classic Golf being contested between 34 golf players from Karachi versus 34 golf players of Lahore.
In this three rounds competition, the first of the three rounds concluded at the Royal Palm Golf and Country Club Golf Course. On the first day the playing format was scrambles match play and the 34 players became 17 pairs and one pair from Karachi had to face the designated competing pair from Lahore.
The early morning tee off took place at 9:45am and as the game progressed noticeable was the nervousness of the Karachi players who somehow got tied down by the multitude of trees and the heavy rough. In Karachi, they are not used to so much greenery. As for the Lahore champions, they felt at ease on their home course and played steadily with hardly any signs of nerves, placing their shots strategically and never straying from the fairways. Lahore pairs won 11 of their matches as against four matches won by the Karachi pairs. Two matches ended up level and thus Lahore concluded the day with full honors accumulating 12 points as against five points gathered by the Karachi team.
From here on, the two teams move to Defence Raya Golf Course where they play the four ball format matches on Saturday and Singles on Sunday.
For Karachi, the victorious pairs were Sibtain Haji/Qazi Amir Hussain, Rizwan Feroze/MA Mannan, Ahmed Siddiqi/Bilal Habib, and Adnan Afridi/Salman Qureshi. The two Karachi pairs who levelled their matches were Azhar Haji/Rashid Malik and Asif Parekh/Shaharyar Shah. The teams got one point for outright victory and half point for a match that is drawn.Thus Karachi ended up with 5 points.
For Lahore team, the victorious pairs were Faisal Iqbal/Farid Malik, Usman Cheema/Khawaja Ahsan, Waleed Zubair/Taimoor Shabbir, Shahid Iqbal/Sharjeel Awan, Amer Mehmood/Faisal Sayid, Omer Salamat/Sardar Murad, Dr Dildar Hussain/Tariq Mushtaq, Rizwan Shafi/Haris Naseer, Gen (r) Tariq Rai/Waqar Butt, Ahmed Gulzar/Abdul Basit and Ramzan Sheikh/Abdul Basit. The Lahori pairs who levelled their matches were Asad Amin/Tariq Misbah and Syed M Umair/Ibrahim Qureshi. By virtue of these victories, Lahore team fetched 12 points. The second round contest will commence at 9:45am on Saturday at Defence Raya Golf Course.