By Rahul Banerji
Top Indian junior Raghav Chugh continued to lead the boys 15 to 18 years category of the US Kids Golf World Teen Championship in Pinehurst, North Carolina, by a four-stroke margin after the second day on Friday.
Chugh, three up on the field after the first day at the prestigious Pinehurst 2 course with a 4-under par round of 68, was in the black on Friday but still did enough to stay ahead of the pack on his two-day aggregate of 141 (68, 73).
Mexico’s Daniel Montalvo moved into second place on 145 (74, 71) with the day’s joint best card of 1-under 71 and it was an indication that conditions were not as conducive to scoring as they had been on Thursday.
In all, only four players came in par or better in this event on Friday in a field of 140.
Bouncing back
Chugh suffered an early setback when he bogeyed the first hole though he got back to par immediately with a birdie on the second second.
A second birdie on the ninth meant the Delhi boy made the on 1-under 35 but three dropped shots on the back nine against one birdie meant he would finish on 1-over 73 for the day.
The 16-year-old, who has his coach Romit Bose on the bag for the Pinehurst event, is no. 1 on the Indian Golf Union’s junior boys Category A rankings. He received an exemption entry to the USKG event based on his national status.
The other Indian in the field, Jalandhar’s Jot Parkash Singh, slipped 23 placed to tied 37th with a second day card of 9-over 81 and a two-day aggregate of 157.
Chugh won the USKG India Tour’s South Zone opener this May at the Clover Greens course in Hosur near Bangalore, bringing in a 7-under par card of 65 on the day.
The USKG event that has six age categories is being played over 54 holes at one of the iconic golf venues of the United States, Pinehurst, which has nine courses in all, many of which are in play for the USKG competitions currently.
APGC entrants making a mark
Meanwhile, at the ongoing 2019 European Young Masters being played in the Czech Republic, an Asia Pacific Golf Confederation team that includes Pranavi Urs and Arjun Bhati of India, Malaysia’s Mirabel Ting and Laopkade Pongsapak, was going well after two days of competition on Friday.
While Mirabel was third at 6-under par (67, 71) in the girls individual event behind a German and a French entrant, Pranavi was tied 16th on 1-over 145 (73, 72).
In the boys competition, Laopkade was also in third place on a 10-under aggregate (66, 68) with boys from Norway and Spain occupying the first two places.
Arjun was further down the field with a level par total of 144 after two days at the par-72 Golf and Spa Kunetika Hora course.
While the rest of the field is also in the fray for the team event with the best three scores from the boys and girls competitions counting towards the day’s total, the APGC entrants are only competing for the individual medals.
The APGC team is being accompanied by Ishwar Achanta as advisor and Rabetul Abbas as captain.
See live scores here
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