Bahrain men close in on title

Bahrain moved into prime position to clinch the men’s teams’ title in the 2019 GCC Golf Championships yesterday after taking a two-shot lead heading into today’s final round of play at Ghala Golf Club in Muscat. The Bahrainis carded a third round score of six-over-par 222 to bring their overall gross total to 18-over-par 666 with the last 18 holes remaining in the competition.

Sultan Mubarak, Mohamed Diab Alnoaimi and Al Mohamed Al Kowari were all in action for the national team yesterday. Mubarak played a one-over-par 73 score, Alnoaimi was two over par and Al Kowari was three over. Khalifa Mohamed Almerisi was also in action but his sixover-par 78 total was not counted.

After starting the day as joint-leaders with Saudi Arabia, the Bahrain men are now in solo first place. Saudi played a 224 gross total in the third round to fall behind. In action for their team were Saud Abdullah Al Sharif, Ali Al Sakhi and Abdulrahman Al Mansoor.

They were a combined 20-over-par 668 over three rounds. In third place were Qatar with a 25-over-par score of 673, while rounding out the teams’ classification were the UAE (684, +36), Oman (729, +81) and Kuwait (743, +95). Meanwhile, Bahrain’s Mubarak lost his lead on the individual players’ standings after dropping to tied-second place. His third-round outing brought his overall score to four-over-par 220.

Mubarak shares the same mark with Saudi’s Al Sharif, and they both now trail new leader Al Sakhi by just a single stroke. Saleh Ali Al Kaabi of Qatar was fourth a further shot behind, while in tied fifth with sevenover-par scores were Bahrainis Alnoaimi and Al Kowari as well as Qatari Jaham Jassim Al Kuwari.

Meanwhile, Bahrain had three other teams participating in the championship’s other categories. In the under-18 teams’ standings, Bahrain were second amongst three participating teams with a 49-over-par total of 337 heading into the third and final round of play. The Bahrainis were composed of Eid Aeel Meftah, Faris isa Alqetami and Manaf Yusuf Ahmed. Qatar were in first place 14 shots ahead while the UAE were third two shots behind the Bahrainis.

In the ladies’ teams’ division, the Bahraini team of Habiba Maher Yusuf, Haya Adel Alqawadhi and Maryam Raed Alansari finished fourth overall after three rounds of play. They had a combined 279-over-par total of 711. The UAE were champions with an 85-over-par score of 517, while Qatar (570, +138) were the silver-medallists and Oman (636, +204) the bronze winners.

In the under-15 teams’ category, Bahrain finished fourth from five teams. The trio of Abdulrahman Ebrahim Saad, Yousuf Ebrahim Habib and Abdulla Rashid Saeed played a threeround gross of 154-over-par 586. The UAE and Oman were tiedfirst with 54-over-par scores of 486, while Saudi finished second with an 83-over-par 515 total. Today’s final round will be followed by the closing ceremony and prize giving.