Insecure Indians Refuse Visa's To Pakistani Golfers
It was chaos as far as sportsmanship spirit goes, when three of the top players of golf from Pakistan were refused a visa by the Indian embassy.
Matloob Ahmed, Muhammed Siddique and Imdad Hussain are well renowned players of golf from Asia. Despite the fact that they qualified, the criteria of Aircel-PGTI Players Championship. Even then, these players were refused and were not given reasons for their rejection. The players who had qualified to participate in the two open championships carrying the winning prize amounting to 4 million Indian rupees. Imdad Hussain tried to contact the Indian embassy through the Indian high commission but they did not inform him regarding his query. The result was that all three players missed both of the events. The first tournament was scheduled from June 22nd to 25th and the second was due on 2nd of July which meant last Friday.
According to the three players, they had invitations sent to them by the organizers. They said they had paid 42 thousand Indian rupees as the entry fee to the embassy, along with the passports. The issue aroused regarding the immaturity and lack of understanding of the Indian embassy’s behaviour. According to the resources the passports are still in the custody of the embassy. When asked from the Indian high commissioner regarding this issue, he kept silent.
These events were held at Poona golf Club. The Poona Club Course is spread over 94 acres of land which is very small for a golf club .It has par 71 and a yardage of 6604 but to make it interesting the designer of the club has made very different and interesting shapes. The club claims that they have the fastest greens in Asia. Because of this tricky design the players have to give a lot of time on analyzing the golf course and strategy making. The opening hole, a par-4 is the starting hole which makes things very difficult.
Regarding the club it is made up of thick clumps of trees lined up on the right side of the narrow fairway. The green is comparatively large and lifted to an angle with lots of small ditches. It is and rough too. The club is not of exotic beauty, nor does it have any of the water hazards.
The players that took part in this event are Gaganjeet Bhullar, C Muniyappa, Anirban Lahiri, Mukesh Kumar, Himmat Singh Rai, Rahil Gangjee, Mohd. Siddikur Rahman, Khan, Sujjan Singh, Vishal Singh, Gaurav Pratap Singh, Harmeet Kahlon, Digvijay Singh, Vijay Kumar, Harendra Gupta,Gurki Shergill Rajiv Datar, Dinesh Raghuvanshi, Jaideep Patwardhan and Pravin Pathare.
All went pleasant with Vishal Singh claiming the Aircel-PGTI Players Championship title. Vishal although did not had an exotic initiation which might have given a sign of some upcoming victory. He made bogey on the second hole but birdies on the third and fourth one. He drove to the green after he had birdies with, both par four holes. The crowd cheered on the 20 feet incredible birdie on the 12th hole.
Although, Vishal went through a setback when he missed from a bunker with a bogey on the 13th hole, things became light when he closed the round with par till the 18th hole. To make it better the champion smashed two stroke margins.
According to the critics his hitting was way too professional and good. He drove the greens on two par four holes, the third and fourth. He had problems with the accuracy and the driving distance but that did not stop him from winning the four million Indian rupee.
All is well if it ends well and for Indian players all went really smooth except for the three Pakistani players who sat home in pursuit of the answer from the Indian high commission. Who is to judge what happened, and what the real problem was but if this prevails then sports scenario between India and Pakistan can get dirty.
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