LAHORE - Akhtar Ali of Lahore Gymkhana emerged as the best senior with a gross score of 72 in the senior professional event of the Quaid-e-Azam Open Golf Championship here at the Lahore Gymkhana golf course on Thursday.
The first day of the four-day event was reserved for events like senior professionals, senior amateurs and ladies section. In all these categories, the contest was over 18 holes and as expected the senior professionals’ competition turned out to be close and at the end of the 18 holes.
Interestingly, Akhtar’s brother Asgher Ali came second losing the top position by a margin of one stroke as his score was gross 73. Other performers are Hafeez Masih who was on third with a score of 74 followed by Ghulam Nabi 75, Abdul Hameed 76 and Dr Amin ur Rehman 77. All praise the performance of Akhter who was long off the tees and displayed accurate shots from the fairways and this combination enabled to win the first cash prize.
In the competition amongst the senior amateurs, there was ample fierceness and though Col (r) M Shafi came out the gross section winner. His nearest rival Naeem Chaudhry ended up one stroke behind him. Shafi had a gross score of 76 and Naeem finished at 77. Another established and accomplished senior Javed A Khan was at third with a score of 78. In the net section, top senior was Rai Azizullah with the net score of 69 while Tariq Mehmood with net 73 was second and Hamid Sethi with net 75 was third.
The ladies event also concluded after 18 holes stroke play competition and Maryama Khan managed 11 pars, five bogies and two double bogies to end up with a winning gross score of 81. Her nearest competitor was Ghazala Yasmin, the national champion, who finished at gross 82. Asma Shami came third in the gross section. In the net section, Tehmina Ahmed won the first net with net score of 72 while Zaibun Nisa was second with a net score of 74 while Sameea Javed Ali came third in net.
The champion professionals will start their competitive march today (Friday) and there will be ample duels to follow with top ones like Matloob Ahmed, Shabbir Iqbal, M Nazir, M Munir, Aadil Jehangir, Shahid Javed Khan and Waheed Baloch seeking lucrative cash prizes offered by the sponsors Shezan International.