Saim Shazli stands proud with his glittering trophy. He has just won the prestigious Sindh Amateur Golf Championship title at the Karachi Golf Club. This is his second title of the season after having won the CAS Open amateur trophy at the Airmen Golf Club, also in Karachi. For several years, the big-hitting Saim had been a leading amateur in Pakistan but this is for the first time he has actually won ranking events.

The reason? For years, top amateurs of the country had been competing and falling short against professionals in national ranking amateur competitions.

“It’s been a frustrating journey but thankfully things have finally changed,” says the burly Saim. “For years we had to compete in ranking amateur tournaments against players who were actually professionals,” he adds. “It wasn’t fair.”

Saim is referring to a long-standing issue in Pakistan golf – the line that separates amateurs and professionals. Internationally, there is no confusion. Any golfer who earns his bread and butter through golf comes under the category of a professional.

However, in Pakistan the golfing authorities in the past allowed players who were actually professionals to compete in amateur tournaments.

This finally changed late last year when the Pakistan Golf Federation (PGF) finally decided to only allow pure amateurs to compete in amateur tournaments. The PGF asked the professional players, who were refusing to formally turn pro to move to a newly-introduced tour that was aimed at giving an opportunity to second-tier professionals to earn a living.

“We had been noticing that the Pakistan golf was suffering because professional players were competing and winning in amateur tournaments,” says Lt Gen Mian Hilal Hussain, President PGF.

“There were professionals playing on the amateur circuit disguised as amateurs. Naturally an amateur seldom stands a chance of beating professionals so the pros were winning all the tournaments. It was discouraging both for existing players and newcomers.

“We took a long, hard look at the situation and decided that something needed to be done to tackle this issue,” he said.

Last year, Gen Hilal asked his team to do a thorough research about this problem and come out with practical solutions.

The PGF finally came to the conclusion that it needed to take a couple of important steps. The first one was to properly segregate amateurs and professionals on the basis of guidelines clearly provided by the Royal and Ancient (R&A) – the body that governs international golf rules.

“The R&A rules clearly provides a distinction between amateurs and professionals,” says Dr Ali Haider, PGF’s joint secretary and one of the key members of the team entrusted with the task of tackling the amateur-pros issue.

So I looked up the definition of an amateur golfer.

According to google, an “amateur golfer”, whether he plays competitively or recreationally, is one who plays golf for the challenge it presents, not as a profession and not for financial gain.

“The problem was that most of the top amateurs were professionals who were making their livelihood through golf,” he says. “It was quite clear that we needed to implement the rules to save amateur golf.”

But there was a problem. Most of the professionals, who were playing the amateur circuit came from modest backgrounds, working either as caddies or coaches. Most of them weren’t confident about turning pro and wanted to keep winning prizes on the amateur circuit. The top ones would be selected in the Pakistan team for international tournaments which meant earning allowances.

So there was some opposition to the idea of excluding such professionals from the amateurs’ circuit. Since they aren’t good enough to beat the top pros, where will they go if they are stopped to compete in amateur events?

To answer that question, the PGF initiated the Jinnah Development Tour (JDT). A brainchild of the PGF President, the JDT is open to all second tier professionals and its events offer cash prizes of at least one million rupees apiece.

The JDT turned out to be a big success. It didn’t just open a new avenue to professionals for whom the amateur events were closed but also provided other struggling pros with an opportunity to earn their bread and butter.

“The JDT is meant to promote golf among our second-tier professionals,” says Gen Hilal. “Over the years our professional circuit has grown but most of the time just the top four, five players win major chunks of the prize money at stake. There was nothing left for the lower-ranked professionals. So most of them had been struggling.

“The JDT is only for second-tier professionals. The top 40 professionals of the country are not allowed to participate in it. All our provincial associations have been asked to hold JDT tournaments and I must say that the initiative has yielded desired results,” he says.

The JDT turned out to be quite successful with players like Peshawar’s Taimur Khan, who had for years been playing as an amateur, winning tournaments and earning the lion’s share from the prize purse.

Then in recent times, Pakistan’s professional circuit received another boost when the vastly-talented Ahmed Baig turned pro after a successful stint as an amateur. Today, he is regarded among the top professionals of the country.

Dr Ali stresses that JDT has paved the way for the development of second-tier professionals. The category of junior professionals wasn’t ignored either as the PGF has made sure that all major professional tournaments in the country have a separate event for junior pros where they can play for a decent prize purse.

While the pros were reaping the rewards, PGF’s decision to segregate amateurs and professionals produced instant results also for the amateurs.

Among the initial tournaments where this policy was implemented was the country’s premier tournament – the 60th National Amateur Championship of Pakistan. Held at the Karachi Golf Club from December 31 to January 3, 2021, the National Amateurs was open to only true amateurs.

And for the first time in Pakistan’s history, a 16-year-old golfer won it!

Omar Khalid became the youngest ever player in history to lift the coveted trophy after carding a stunning round of two-under par 70 on the final day to win the championship by a big margin of five strokes.

“Our decision to allow only true amateurs to play in the National Championship clicked,” says Gen Hilal. “I mean we saw the 16-year-old Omar Khalid winning the national title. I’m sure that we will see more Omar Khalids succeeding in the future.”

Just weeks after Omar’s title-winning triumph, the talented Hamza Ghani won the DHA Open at the Defence Authority Country and Golf Club with Omar finishing as the runner-up. Just like Saim Shazli, Hamza had also been falling short of winning national ranking titles in the past as he had to compete against professionals in amateur events.

Saim then won the CAS amateurs title after a three-way tie with Omar Khalid and Omar Shikoh Khan, and later the Sindh Amateurs

Meanwhile, in the north leading amateur players like Pakistan No. 1 Umer Khokhar, Ralfay Raja, Qasim Khan, Salman Jahangir and Salman Khan are also flexing their muscles as they look to dominate the national amateur circuit alongside the likes of Omar Khalid and Saim Shazli.

“These are going to be exciting times for both our amateurs and professionals,” says Dr Ali. “Golf in Pakistan is growing and with new amateurs and professionals coming up I must say that things are going to get better and better.”

Khalid Hussain is Editor Sports of The News. khalidhraj@gmail.com

The decision by the Pakistan Golf Federation to properly segregate amateurs and professionals has produced highly positive results