Pakistan returned to the World Cup of Golf after a gap of 27 years this week and would be enjoying mid-leaderboard respectability but for an 18th hole jinx.
Pakistan returned to the World Cup of Golf after a gap of 27 years this week and would be enjoying mid-leaderboard respectability but for an 18th hole jinx.
Muhammad Munir and Muhammad Shabbir shot 10 birdies in Saturday's fourballs but a double bogey at the last, where they dropped three shots on Friday, left them just one spot off the bottom of the leaderboard at the 28-team event.
"If they hadn't dropped those five shots they'd be right in it," Taimir Hassan Amin, secretary general of the Pakistan Golf Federation (PGF), told Reuters as he walked the 18th fairway at the Mission Hills Golf Club.
Munir and Shabbir fired their country back into the World Cup for the first time since 1982 by finishing third in Asian qualifying in August.
Amin represented Pakistan at the 1975 and 1977 World Cups and feels that Shabbir and Munir, both from his Islamabad club, have acquitted themselves admirably this week.
"They're really good players but they don't play enough," he said. "They were apprehensive because it was their first time playing the World Cup. It's a really big thing for our golf, it will help motivate our youngsters."
Political unrest has played its part in restricting playing time for the country's top players with the Pakistan Open at the Karachi Golf Club being cancelled for the last two years because of security concerns.
"We are battling perceptions that it is unsafe," Amin said. "People don't realise that Karachi is a thousand miles from where the trouble is. But the media keeps reporting the problems so the players feel it would be unsafe."
He is confident, however, that the tournament will be back on the Asian Tour schedule for next season.
"The Asian Tour have been very supportive," he said. "They've given us a date for the end of March so hopefully everything's on track."
Amin could barely contain his frustration when Shabbir fired his drive at the 18th into the water.
The player himself gave a resigned shrug but was hoping to make it fourth time lucky in Sunday's closing foursomes.
"Tomorrow, inshallah, I will birdie it," he said.
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