LAHORE, Oct 26 (APP):Ashiq Hussain (Multan) a player of national standing, surfaced and emerged as the leading contender on the second day of the Chief of Naval Staff golf championship by displaying champion like capabilities in the second eighteen holes at the Defence Raya golf club here on Saturday.
The flow of his shots was remarkable and truly majestic were his powerful drives on the par 4’s and par 5’s. Added to that, noticeable was his putting command on the greens.
He was fluent in putting and not once did he have a three putt over the eighteen holes.Overnight he was lagging behind but through a phenomenal performance in the second round , he tops the leader board in this prestigious championship with two round scores of 73 and 65 and an aggregate of 138 ,six under par.
From the competitive angle the battle lines are clearly drawn and with two rounds to go ,Ashiq Hussain will be up against foes and rivals like Ghazanfar Mehmood (Garden City),Zunair Aleem(Defence Raya) and Taimur Khan(PAF).
Score wise these three combatants have a coercive presence and although they trail the leader ,they have the ability to surprise the top one who currently at the end of second round prevails over them.In the second round ,Ghazanfar gave a dashing performance and resultantly is placed at a two days aggregate score of 139,five under par.As for Zunair Aleem ,the energetic one with the capacity of hitting tee shots over 300 yards on the par fours and par fives ,he is placed at a score of 143,one under par.Taimur Khan (PAF) is at 144 and Zulfiqar Ali (Mulatn) is at 145.
In the race for honors in Senior category ,Tariq Mehmood (Garrison) won the first gross with a score of gross 74.Second gross was secured by Col Asif Mehdi.His score for the 18 holes was 78.Third slot went to Col Shafi(Raya) .He also scored 78,but Asif had a better score over the back nine.In the amateur net ,the leaders are Umar Khawaja and Noyyan Nayyar,their scores being an incredible net 134,ten under par.
Ladies category gross winner was Ghazala Yasmin ,while Suneya Osma came second and Zain un Nisa was third.
A significant feature of this golfing event is that digital technology was employed and with the support of Gemgolfers.com,the scores were beamed out live.