LAHORE, April 28: A total of 175 golfers will compete in five categories of the 28th Punjab amateur golf tournament which tees off at Lahore Gymkhana from Friday.

In amateur section, Vaqas Ahmed (Rawalpindi) is top seed as defending champion Umair Javed of Karachi decided against participating because of his examinations.

Punjab Golf Association secretary Col. Zulfiqar said it was the second highest ranking amateur tournament.

The competitions will also be held in ladies sections (11 entries), seniors (55), veterans (21) and juniors (13).

The players having handicap of 14 or below on April 29 are eligible to take part in amateurs category while ladies, who have handicap 36 or below are also allowed.

The junior category has been divided into A and B classes. The juniors of 15 to 17 years ages will be in A while from 13 and 14 in B.

The main trophy will be given to the winner of the gross event of amateur section.

Following are the top nine players competing in the amateur section:

Vaqas Ahmad (Rawalpindi), Sameer Iftikhar, Imran Ahmed, Shafique Bhatti, Danyal Jehangir (Gymkhana), Mohammad Safdar (Gujranwala), Lt-Col Asif Mehdi (Garrison), Khawaja Imran Zubair (Gymkhana) and Bilal-ur-Rehman (Sialkot).