Karandeep grabs lead at Masters
Karandeep Kochhar of Chandigarh, who capped his career-best season last year with a fourth-place finish on the PGTI Order of Merit, showed signs of carrying forward his hot form into the current season as he struck a masterly eightunder-63 to seize the first round lead at the seasonopening Golconda Masters at the Hyderabad Golf Club on Wednesday.
The 20-year-old, who became the youngest-ever winner on the PGTI back in 2016 at 17 years and five months while still an amateur, enjoyed a one-stroke advantage over Patna’s Aman Raj and the Bengaluru duo of Trishul Chinnappa and Khalin Joshi, all three of whom posted 64s.
Five players were bunched together in tied fifth with rounds of 65. This included Sri Lankan Mithun Perera, Mhow’s Om Prakash Chouhan, Ludhiana’s Pukhraj Singh Gill, Gurugram’s Veer Ahlawat and Kolkata’s Shankar Das.
Rashid Khan, the leading Indian in the world ranking at 177 and also the 2019 PGTI Order of Merit champion, carded a 66 to be placed tied 10th.
Pune’s Udayan Mane, the 2018 champion and winner of PGTI’s last event in December 2019, returned a 68 to be tied 18th.
Venkkat Gautham was the best-placed among the Hyderabad-based professionals. He was in tied 27th courtesy his two-under-69.
Former Indian hockey captain Dilip Tirkey, playing as a professional for the first time, produced a 10-over-81 to be placed 125th.
It was a low-scoring day with as many as 51 players shooting under-par rounds.
Karandeep began the tournament with birdies on the first two holes thanks to a tap-in and a 20feet conversion. Karandeep, who missed just one green all day, added three more birdies on the sixth, seventh and eighth to quickly climb up the leaderboard.
A few missed birdie opportunities early on the back-nine didn’t dampen his spirit as he continued his upward graph with another hat-trick of birdies from the 15th through the 17th. He drove the par-4 15th green and chipped it to within a foot on the 17th.
A great bunker shot on the 18th set the youngster up for his fourth straight birdie but his 15-feet putt lipped out.
Aman Raj, the joint runner-up at last year’s edition, once again displayed he has what it takes to negotiate the tough conditions at the HGA. The Asian Tour regular, who had shot three rounds of 64 at the 2019 edition, came up with another 64 to make an impact early on in the tournament.
Aman began his day on the back-nine and accumulated birdies on the 12th, 15th and 16th. He narrowly missed a chip-in for eagle on the 15th.