LAHORE: Lahore Gymkhana and Defence Raya tightened their grip on Inter Club Golf Contest being held at Royal Palm Golf Club. In the contest for honors in the ongoing three-day competition between Lahore Gymkhana, Defence Raya and Royal Palm Golf Club, the battle has narrowed down to a final day fight between Gymkhana and Defence Raya. After the completion of two comprehensive golfing rounds, the first one played at Royal Palm on Friday and second one at Defence Raya, yesterday and final round to be played at Gymkhana Golf Course on Sunday, the twenty member Gymkhana team has managed to compile 48 points as against 47 managed by Defence Raya and Royal Palm ends up at 25 points. Leader at the end of second day may be Gymkhana but breathing down their neck is the Defence Raya Team who are just one point behind which means that one can expect a close fight on Sunday. At the end of the first day on Friday, which was contested on three ball six some alternate shot format, Gymkhana team had aggregated 27 points as compared to 21 points by Defence Raya while the first days hosts, Royal Palm could gather only 12 points. In this outing at Royal Palm Golf Course, the Gymkhana Team owed their advantage and superiority to the efforts of Wazir Ali and Ahsan Khawaja, Salman Jehangir and Mohsen Zafar, Ahmed Zafar Hayat and Sardar Murad, Saeed Ahmed and Tanveer Najm, Usman Jameel and Naveed Sharif and Rao Usman and Rao Omer. Those who stood out for Defence Raya were the pairings of Zunair Aleem and Imran Ahmed, Jamal Nasir and Ahmed Rafi, Majid Mushtaq and Khurram Khan, and Ali Hameed and Attaurrehman. The second round competition at the Defence Raya Golf Course was played on stableford format yesterday and team members who stole the limelight for Defence Raya were Zunair Aleem, Imran Ahmed, Omer Salamat, Col Ikram, Omer Chaudry, Khurram Khan, Ali Hameed, Danial Lashari, Shahid Siddique, Dr Shafqat and Mikail Majid. With determined and admirable application of their abilities, these contenders helped to reduce the advantage held by the Gymkhana team. Team members who played forcefully for Gymkhana during the round on Saturday were Qasim Ali Khan, Ahsan Khawaja, Waleed Zubair, Shehryar Anwar, Farhan Khan, Hassan Samiuddin and Rao Usman. Royal Palm may be lagging behind but a few of their members excelled and these included Abdul Islam Nazir, Mikhail Khan and Gen Muhammed Tariq. Sunday promises fireworks as the team members of Gymkhana and Defence Raya are all poised to curb each others march to victory. Tensions are bound to cause adversities in performances but both teams have skilled players capable of tremendous display of quality golf. It is difficult to predict the victorious one but one thing that goes in favour of Gymkhana team is that the final round will be played at their home course. Team positions after two rounds: Lahore Gymkhana Team 48 points; Defence Raya Team 47 points; Royal Palm Team 25 points.
