Muhammed Rehman, a golfer of significant standing will lead a strong cast of hopefuls in the inaugural three rounds 54 holes, Chief of Naval Staff Amateur Golf Championship at the 18-holes Royal Palm Golf and Country Club Golf Course. For Rehman, this will be an outing on his home course and he draws immense confidence from that.
“My game has been good, yet I missed out on a chance to show my mettle at the recently concluded National Amateur Golf Championship in Islamabad, and I feel I have to make up for that and produce a refreshing breath of carefree golf in this prestigious Pakistan Navy sponsored event.” Certainly, M Rehman is an exciting talent and hopes to benefit from the big occasion provided by the Naval Chief.
As for Royal Palm itself, this is the second time within 30 days that the country’s elite amateur golf players will return to Royal Palm for a taste of its challenging layout and apply their golfing skills in a way that the course is tamed. And many of the single handicappers practising at the course yesterday were of the view that competitive golf is a funny affair, sometimes the victories come so easily and frequently and then there are times when, painfully, results go the other way.
Of course the unanimous verdict was that if one can keep the swing and wits intact, the performance is most satisfying. Also buoyed with confidence, on this occasion, are players like Wazir Ali, Sameer Iftikhar, Ahmed Zafar Hayat, Tariq Mehmood, Nisar Tinkoo, Suffian Dhodak and Mohsin Zafar. Having played here on numerous occasions, they believe that accuracy in shot making will be the key in deciding the honoured winner of this event.
Asad IA Khan a prominent name of Karachi and currently Head of Nespak in Lahore said ‘there is one thing that is absolutely essential, and that is you have to hit the fairways and the rest will take care of itself, of course not to lose sight of the fact that some of the greens are tricky and have to be managed through clean putting strokes, with hesitancy factor totally eliminated from the putting stroke’. Emerging young talent on the prowl consist of Mahad Zafar, Zohaib Asif, Salman Jehangir amongst the Boys and Maryama Khan and Kara Alam in the girls section.
Extremely eager to show their worth these youngsters need a boost through a spectacular performance and the most anxious one is Mahad Zafar who aims to give a gift of sporting glory to his golfer grandfather Air Cmdr (R) ZI Ahmed by winning the inaugural CNS Golf Championship. Commodore Akbar Naqi, Station Commander, Pak Navy, Lahore, the spirit behind this grand event is so eager to see some excellence in golfing scores and the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Noman Bashir has sent his blessings to the competing golfers.
The playing arena is ready to challenge the golfers’skills and now is a trend setter for golf course construction in Pakistan.
