A 34 member golf team from Karachi is involved in an intense competition with a rather accomplished Lahore Golf Team at the breathtaking par 72, Royal Palm Golf Course and much against expectations, the Karachi golf champions, ended up the second round looking subdued, with the Lahore team ahead by 12 points, a lead that looks imposing, as the two rivals play their final 34 singles matches on Sunday.
The total points at stake in this recurring Legends Classic Golf Championship between Karachi and Lahore Teams, are 68 and the winning team has to accumulate a minimum of 34.5 points to lay claim to the glittering trophy. After two rounds, Lahore Team led by Haroon Arshed has gathered 23 points as against Karachi Team led by Imran Habib, with 11 points in their bag.
The Karachi Team displayed good all round golf playing abilities, yesterday at the challenging Royal Palm Golf Course but somehow failed to match the consistency of the Lahori accomplished ones who managed to gain ascendancy in 12 of the 17 matches that were contested yesterday on four ball, best ball basis. In most of these contests Karachi Team’s able ones did have their tails up for a part of each match but as the four ball heated up, their shotmaking lost its sting and the lads from Lahore taking full advantage of their rivals loss of focus showed enough excellence to cow them down into submission.
The first ones to set the pattern was the pairing of Tariq Misbah and Taimur Shabbir of Lahore who beat Zahid Ibrahim and Ahsan Siqqiqi of Karachi. Tariq Misbah played an outstanding shot of the day when on hole number 8 he was stuck up behind some thick trees and he saw a scary two feet opening and using his nine iron to good purpose, he swung smoothly enough to make perfect use of the two feet opening and found the green, ending up two feet from the hole.A shot of excellence that is difficult to duplicate.
Other winners for Lahore were the pairings of Col (r) Jameel Khalid and Ramzan Sheikh, Asad Amin and Faisal Iqbal, Shahid Abbas and Sharjeel Awan, Azfar Hassan and Faisal Ali Malik, Omer Salamat and Humayun Mian, Haroon Arshed(Captain) and Usman Cheema, Farid Malik and Ahmed Gulzar, Dr Dildar Chaudry and Haq Nawaz Tiwana, Tariq Mushtaq and Imran Miraj, Col Asf Medi and M.Leghari and Hashim Butt and Faisal Sayid.Faisal and Hashim combined very well for achieving victory with Faisal Sayid using his putter to good effect.
For Karachi the successful pairings were Aly Rana and Danish Feroze, Taufiq Adam and Bilal Habib, Adnan Sohail and Mikaeel Habib, Rashid Malik and Adnan Afridi and Asad Shiraz and Ali Naqi Taqi.Some very senior Karachi players who did not sparkle in their contests yesterday were Sohail Rana, Imran Habib Asad I.A.Khan and Adil Haji.Sohail Rana a former Captain of Karachi Golf Club said, “You win some and you lose some but for me the important thing is that I have played at this fantastic golf course and made many friends”.Asad looked determined to really sparkle in the final round on Sunday.
The final singles on Sunday (Lahore names first) will be Omer Salamat vs Aly Rana; Col (R) Asif Mehdi vs Danish Feroze; Aamir Mehmood vs Sohail Rana; Azfar Hassan vs Mansoor Teli; Asad Amin vs Omer Faroque; Faisal Ali Malik vs Asif Ahmed; Col (r) Jameel Khalid vs Mujtaba Bilal; Aamer Bhatti vs Ayaz Peer; Shahid Abbas vs Asad I.A.Khan; Sharjeel Awan vs Navaid Ali; Mohammed Leghari vs Adil Haji; Faisal Sayid vs Muhammed Iqbal; Taimoor Shabbir vs Yasir Zaidi; Tariq Misbah vs Muneer Feroze; Hashim Butt vs Altaf Hashwani; Humayun Mian vs Sibtain Haji; Usman Cheema vs Zahid Ibrahim; Haroon Arshed (Captain) vs Nadir Leghari; Ramzan Sheikh vs Ahsan Siddiqui; Dr Dildar Chaudry vs Khalid Siddiqui; Faisal Naqvi vs Arshad I.A.Khan; Haq Nawaz Tiwana vs Mikaeel Habib; Tariq Mushtaq vs Abid Sayeed; Agha Asad vs Adnan Sohail; Faisal Iqbal vs Ejaz Khan; Farid Malik vs Asad Shiraz; Imran Miraj vs Ahmed Siddiqi; Ahmed Gulzar vs Rashid Malik; Haris Naseer vs Bilal Habib; Rizwan Shafi vs Adnan Afridi; Abdul Basit vs Taufiq Adam; Ahmed Rafi vs Bilal Muneer; Ali Irfan vs Azhar Nabi; Syed Umair Ali Naqi Taqi.