KARACHI: Thailand players Jakraphan Premsirigorn, Namchok Tantipokhkul and Suradit Yong emerged joint leaders after conclusion of the second round of the UMA-CNS Asian Tour Open Golf Championship at the well maintained Karachi Golf Club here on Friday. The trio ended the two rounds at an aggregate score of 137, seven under par. And the cheerful and reassuring news for Pakistan was that its number two ranked player of the national golf circuit Mohammad Munir was placed one shot behind the leading trio at a two days aggregate score of 138, six under par. And this position he shares with Pawin Ingkhapradit of Thailand, who also managed a score of 138.
As for the overnight young leader Ahmad Baig, he slipped to seventh position because of a minor hiccup, which marred his scorecard somewhat and he concluded the se cond round at an aggregate score of 141, three under par. Even though he slipped a little down the leaderboard, there is an ample optimism that he will regain his imposing position in this championship through golfing excellence during the remaining two rounds. While the Thai trio demonstrated inspiring consistency in terms of hitting ability and motivating work on the greens, Munir of Islamabad made his presence felt by exquisite hitting off the tees and splendid putting. And all this yielded an admirable reward for him. His score on the first day was 69 and he virtually duplicated this perfection during the second round also with an impressive round of 69, three under par and an overall aggregate of 138.
There were ample pitfalls for the brilliant Pakistanis participating in this Asian Tour. Shabbir Iqbal was unable to come up with an outstanding performance and also without luster were the performances of Mohammad Matloob and Shahid Javed Khan. The cut was placed at the end of the second round and out of 131 participants, 57 stand weeded out and will no longer be a part of this championship. Interestingly, the weeded out ones include quite a few overseas players also: two are from Austria, four are from Thailand, one from Philippines and one from India.
Published in Daily Times, Oct ober 13th 2018.