Top Pak juniors to feature in Faldo Golf series

KARACHI: Pakistan’s leading junior players will exhibit their mettle in the country’s premier junior tournament – 9th Faldo Series Pakistan – which tees off here at the Defence Authority Country and Golf Club from Thursday (today).

The four-day tournament will feature the cream of national junior golf with a total of 44 boys and girls taking part in the various categories. The categories to be contested during the 72-hole tournament will be boys under-21, boys under-18, boys under-16, girls under-21 and girls under-16. The Pakistan leg of the Faldo Series will serve as national trials for the Faldo Series Asia Grand Finals to be held at the Laguna Lang Co Golf Club in Danang, Vietnam from March 4-6. The winner from each category is generally selected to represent Pakistan in the Asian Finals but this time the national selectors are in a dilemma because merely five girls are participating in the two girls’ categories. There are just two girls in Under-21 category and three in under-16s.

“While we have a healthy entry list in the boys categories especially under-16s, it is disappointing to see that there are just five girls competing in this tournament. With such a low turnout the selection committee will have to take a decision on whether to send two girls to the Asia Grand Finals on the basis of these trials,” said Asad I.A Khan, the tournament director. Asad, a vice president of the Pakistan Golf Federation (PGF), also heads the PGF’s selection committee.

Meanwhile, the juniors’ preparations for the tournament were in full swing on Wednesday. In the boys’ under-21 category, there are nine contestants with the favourites being the trio of Ralfe’e Raja, Vivek Anand and Hamza Shikoh Khan. There are 15 aspirants in the boys’ Under-18 category with the list headed by Junaid Irfan, Damil Ataullah, Waleed Chachar and Ali Mehmood. A total of 16 boys will be featuring in the under-16 category with the trio of Omar Khalid, Danyal Khan and Yashal Shah starting the event as the favourites. The tournament’s organising committee is headed by Asad, who is also President Sindh Golf Association (SGA). PGF has sent its Manager Golf, Salman Abbasi, to assist in the smooth hosting of the tournament. Lt Col (retd) Zahid Iqbal is the tournament referee while other committee members include Humera Khalid, Ahmed Jamil Siddiqui and Kashif Shabbir. Supported by The R&A and endorsed by the Asian Tour and the Asia Pacific Golf Confederation, the Faldo Series Asia recognised as the only global amateur series for boys and girls. It was established in 1996, expanding to Asia in 2006. Today, 40 Faldo Series tournaments take place in 30-plus countries worldwide, touching more than 7,000 golfers each year. Past winners include Tseng Ya-ni and Rory McIlroy, both multiple Major winners. In addition, Tour winners Nick Dougherty, Oliver Fisher, Marc Warren, John Parry, Rashid Khan, Melissa Reid, Florentyna Parker and Carly Booth have also featured in the Faldo series in their younger days. Since the inauguration of the Faldo Series Asia in 2007, the Grand Final has been won by players from Japan and India on four occasions each and once by players from China and Thailand. The Series is named after Sir Nick Faldo, a six-time Major winner, who is regarded as the most successful golfer that Britain has ever produced.