Noida’s Kashif Alam bags round one honours

LUCKNOW : Noida’s Kashif Alam struck a flawless six-under-28 to take the honours in round one of the PGTI Feeder Tour, at the Palm Golf at the Sushant Golf City here on Wednesday. Abhinav Lohan of the DLF Golf & Country Club, Gurugram, was placed second courtesy his round of five-under-29.

Locals Sanjeev Kumar and Amardeep Rawat were in tied third with scores of four-under-30 along with Kolkata’s Imran Ali Mollah and Gurugram’s Aditya Raj Kumar Chauhan, whereas Sanjay Kumar was in tied 13th at two-under-32.

As a result of heavy rain for the last one week part of the course was rendered unplayable and as such the round was reduced to nine holes with the par for the course being 34.

Kashif Alam got his round going with a 15-feet birdie conversion on his first hole, the third.

He then made further inroads with three consecutive birdies on the eighth, ninth and 15th. Kashif signed off his round in style with an eagle on the closing 18th where he holed his approach from 60 yards.

“What really clicked for me was the ability to stay in the moment and not get ahead of myself or even get too affected by mis-hits. I have been practising hard and have had some good finishes on the Feeder Tour, so have been feeling confident. It was about getting it all together,” said Kashif. “I also felt I didn’t try too hard to pull off crazy shots, and played within myself to play percentage shots.”

“I putted really well. I was in trouble on two holes, the fifth and seventh, but made two clutch eight and 12 footers for par there.”