Pakistan Open Golf Championship 2019: Korea’s Kim & Japan’s Nari Set the Pace

Pakistan Open Golf Championship 2019: Joohyung Kim of Korea in lead at end of Round 1 – Courtesy: All Thailand Golf Tour Facebook

LAHORE: The first round in this four rounds Pakistan Open Golf Championship 2019, was completed on the first day.  Being held under the umbrella of Pakistan Golf Federation along with Asian Development Tour, 113 aspirants are participating which includes 81 leading Pakistani Golf Professionals, 21 foreign players from 10 countries, five amateurs and six invitees.

It was Johyung Kim of Korea and Nari Gamma of Japan who played an amazing and inspiring first round of gross 66, six under par, to set the pace in this title bearing event. In the face of intense challenge offered by 111 other ambitious hopefuls, these highly skilled young ones of Asia were right on target from the word go and through accurate hitting from the tees and perfection loaded fairway shots, they gave an indication of their intention to appear as relentless ones of this international golf event in Lahore. 

On a golf course that looks superb in terms of undulations, trimmed fairways and speedy greens, two strokes behind the leaders is Oscar Zattarwali of Sweden. He is another champion who showed ample control and command in the first eighteen holes and except for one blemish, he was elegant and outstanding on the run of play and his effort fetched him a round of gross 68, four under par.

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The leaders of the first round may be satisfied with their  own effort but from the competitive angle their nearest challengers are six Pakistani golf professionals, namely, M. Nazir, his brother M. Munir, Moazzam Siddique, Amjad Yousaf, Zohaib Asif and the seasoned one, Shahid Javed Khan. These enthusiastic and reassured champions of the national golf scene reflected remarkable control over execution of their long drives and backed up with splendid putting on the greens. This phenomenal effort helped them to compile a score of gross 69, three under par. Also placed at the score of 69, is Sam Gills of USA. These six Pakistanis have a task ahead of them in the remaining three rounds and if they can keep their nerves intact, they just might prevail over their international adversaries, who seek to win good prize money in this championship.

 Six more competitors who are looking good are Jesse Yap (Singapore), Hyuchul Shin (Korea), Choo Tze Huang (Singapore), Koh Deng Shan (Singapore) and two Pakistanis, Hamza Amin and M. Shahzad. They are bracketed at a score of gross 70, two under par.

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