LAHORE: Sunny Masih and Minhaj Warraich matched each other with opening rounds of four-under 68, firing five birdies each, to share top spot in the professionals’ leaderboard of the J.A. Zaman Memorial Golf Championships at the Lahore Gymkhana on Thursday.
Sunny, playing at his home course, and Minhaj, of the Rawalpindi Golf Club, both made fast starts — the former hitting his first birdie on the second hole while the latter opening with one — before unleashing their driving and putting after a bogey each.
Sunny bogeyed the sixth hole before firing birdies on the eighth, 10th, 15th and 16th holes while Minhaj quickly got over a bogey on the fourth hole before sinking birdies on the fifth, seventh, 13th and 15th holes.
In a close contest, the duo hold a one-shot lead over Mohammad Munir and Ahmed Baig with Matloob Ahmed the lone golfer at 70. A group of eight golfers is a shot further adrift while as many as 10 golfers, including Pakistan’s undisputed number one Shabbir Iqbal, teed off their campaigns with 72.
Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2023
