KARACHI: M Imran from Lahore’s Defence Raya took the lead on the opening day of the inaugural PGF Development Tour event here at the Airmen Golf Club on Monday.
Imran carded one-under par 71 to top the leader-board in the three-day event being hosted by the Sindh Golf Association. The Development Tour has been initiated by the Pakistan Golf Federation (PGF).
Apart from Imran, the other high performers in the opening round were Shahid Hanif (73), Arshad Rasheed (73), Tahir Naseem (73), Shahid Malik (74) and Akbar Mehroze (74).
The Development Tour essentially promotes the second tier of professional golfers, who are struggling to improve their games. This will give them the opportunity to earn a decent livelihood. The Tour comprises 120 golfers, 60 professionals who qualified for the PGF Card, alongwith 40 professionals who hold reserve cards and 20 Junior professionals. The first Development tour which is under progress has been assigned to the Sindh Golf Association. The Professionals are vying for rupees one million as prize money which will be distributed amongst the top 40 players in order of merit. The Professional Development Tour will be a recurring tour, commencing from Sindh and moving onto other provinces – The PGF had decided that the minimum prize money has to be rupees one million, to make it worthwhile for the professionals to participate – Although, all such prize awarding matches are normally sponsored events by large Banks or Corporations – it is Sindh Golf Association, the only provincial Association that collects money from golf club members in the form of a tournament levy alongwith a Capitation fee which generates over Rs10 million for the Association, which is then partly utilized during the Sindh Open Golf Championship and also for holding the Sindh Amateur, SGA Cup etc. It is expected that the Development Tour will help promote and raise the standard of Professional golf in Pakistan.