KARACHI: Sunday’s final round was largely expected to be more of a coronation than a contest. Yet when it was time to crown the latest winner of the CAS Open Golf Championship, Shabbir Iqbal wasn’t even there. Pakistan’s top golfer had left the Airmen Golf Club for the Karachi Airport to catch a flight back home.

The closing ceremony was an anti-climax after four days of utter dominance by Shabbir where he proved untouchable for his rivals. On a hazy, breezy evening, he wasn’t there to hold aloft his well-deserved prize. None of that would matter to Shabbir though. After being unable to win two tournaments in the last month, he’d already made a statement. He is the country’s best golfer by far.

Shabbir’s final-round 70 wasn’t as spectacular as his first-round 66 or his third-round 68 but it was enough for him to post a stunning aggregate of 16-under 272 and win by a massive margin of 12 strokes. He’d done the hard work in the previous three rounds. The 10-shot lead he’d built meant he could afford to take it easy.

His uber-competitive nature though doesn’t let him relax. Even though he hit a bogey on the second hole, he bounced back with birdies on the fifth and seventh holes. He played par on each hole after that before hitting a birdie on the 18th for the coup de grace.

Shabbir’s long-time rival Mohammad Munir produced the day’s best score of 68 to end in second place. Having fallen 14 strokes behind Shabbir at the end of the third round, Munir had said anything could happen in golf. But to win the title, he needed an almighty meltdown from Shabbir which never happened.

He started the final round with purpose though, hitting a birdie on the first hole, only for a bogey on the sixth to impede his progress. He rebounded superbly to hit birdies on the seventh, ninth and 10th holes before he bogeyed the 12th. Birdies on the 14th, 16th and 18th — with a bogey on the 17th — were too little too late for Munir whose below-par performances in the first two rounds proved costly.

Hamza Amin (74) and Mohammad Ashfaq (75) finished joint-third as they ended up at one-under 287. Mohammad Alam’s 71 saw him finish the four rounds on a par score, a shot ahead of Mohammad Safdar (74).

The most startling gap, though, was between Shabbir and Matloob Ahmed, the winner of the Rashid D. Habib Memorial and DHA Karachi Cup over the last month. Matloob’s 77 saw him finish at five-over 293 — 21 strokes behind the winner.

Elsewhere, Aania Farooq’s two-day aggregate of 165 saw her clinch the ladies’ gross title while Abiha Syed was the net category winner with 146. Retired Air Marshal Farhat Hussain was awarded a car for a ‘hole-in-one’ on the par-three second hole.

Also, Taimoor Khan won the amateurs’ title, Mohammad Akram took the senior professionals’ crown and Syed Bilal topped the junior professionals.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2019