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Ali Hai eyes Bangladesh crown Back To Main

KARACHI: Former champion Ali Hai will be looking to regain the title when the 2012 Bangladesh National Amateur Golf Championship will tee off at the Kurmitola Golf Club in Dhaka on Wednesday (today).

Ali, the reigning national amateur champion, won the Bangladesh crown in Chittagong in March 2010. At the last year’s championship held in Dhaka, he finished as the runner-up. “The field is quite tough here this year with a number of leading players from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and a few other countries featuring in the tournament,” Ali told ‘The News’ from Dhaka on Tuesday. “But my form is good and I’m confident of doing well here,” said the Karachi-based player, who won the national amateur crown here at the DHA Golf Club last December.

A total of six teams will be competing for top honours in the Bangladesh Championship which will conclude on February 4. Ali, 30, is at the helm of the four-member Pakistan team that includes Waseem Rana, Mohammad Rehman and teenager Mobariz Ahmed.

Back in 2010, Ali carded a brilliant 69 on the final round of the four-day spectacle at the Bhattiyari Golf Club to edge Bangladesh’s Mohammad Sayum by a solitary stroke. He became the first Pakistani in eleven years to win Bangladesh’s premier golfing event. Taimur Hassan, Pakistan’s legendary golfer, won the title in 1999.

Ali, a son of Pakistan’s former Davis Cup captain Saeed Hai, one-over 289 with scores of 72, 73, 75 and 69. He was a part of a four-man Pakistan team that included Tariq Mehmood, Mohammad Safdar and Mohammad Rehman.

Asad I A Khan, the vice president of Sindh Golf Association (SGA), believes that Ali has the guts to win the Bangladesh title again. “Ali has great potential and I’m sure that if he gives his best, he can win the title again,” said Asad, a veteran golfer who has represented Pakistan in several international events.