After two rounds of rather intense competitive golfing activity at the breathtaking par 72 Royal Palm Golf Course,the 20 member Lahore team led by Haroon Arshed, combined well to beat the energetic and highly charged Karachi team who played under the captaincy of Imran Habib,by 22 points to 18 points.No doubt the standard of golf during the scrambles match play on the first day and four ball match play and singles on the final day yesterday remained high and the issue tilted Lahores way because of some extremely good work around the greens by the spirited lahori lads.
In this battle of nerves on the final day much interest was generated by the impressive display of golfing approch shots by the combination of Amer Mehmood and Muhammed Leghari who successfully unnerved the strong Karachi duo of Imran Habib and Adil Haji knocking them out on 11th hole.In the four ball contests other combinations who enabled Lahore to gain vital points were Asad Agha/Fareed Bajwa,Hashim Butt/Haroon Arshed,Ibrahim Qureshi/Syed Umer,Sardar Murad/Tariq Misbah and Azfar Hassan/Sharjeel Awan.The succesful combinations for Karachi were Moji Bilal/Asad I A Khan,Perwez Ansari/Arshed I A Khan,Danish Feroz/Yasir Zaidi and Umer Farooq/Ahsan Siddiqui.
In the overall context Lahore won six points out of ten in the scrambles play against four of Karachi,six points in four ball matches as against Karachis four and the twenty points in singles were shared equally with Lahore getting ten and an equal number for Karachi;the points thus aggregated to 22 for Lahore and 18 for Karachi.In the singles the victorious ones for Lahore were Amir Mehmood,Muhammed Leghari,Asad Agha,Fareed Bajwa,Shoaib Shams,Ibrahim Qureshi,Sardar Murad,Azfar Hassan,Ramzan Sheikh and Hashim Butt and Haroon Arshed got half point each as their matches were level.
In singles contest the high achievers for Karachi Team were Asad I A Khan who certainly got into his winning groove getting over the bashing he got on the first day,Rashid Malik.Arshed I A Khan,Perwez Ansari,Danish Feroz,Yasir Zaidi,Navaid Ali,Mansoor Teli and half point each for Rizwan Feroz and Mikaeel Habib.
The prize distribution was a well attended affair and amongst the guests were Lt Gen(R)M.Tariq,Pervez Qureshi,Omer Mir,Col Jamil Khalid,the US Consul General in Lahore,Carmela Convoy,and a large number of golfers.On behalf of Karachi their team captain Imran Habib appreciated the playing conditions at the golf course and Royal Palms hospitality and hoped Legends Classic Tour will become a broad based affair in future.
