Two come close, but Panasonic Open leader keeps his place

By Rahul Banerji

Asian Tour veteran Terry Pilkadris of Australia and Ye Htet Aung of Myamnar returned the day’s best cards of 6-under 66 but overnight leader Itthipat Buranatanyarat of Thailand retained his place at the head of the field in the $400,000 Panasonic Open India going into Saturday’s delayed second round.

At the end of the extended first round on Friday, split thanks to poor visibility into two parts at the Classic Golf and Country Club near Gurgaon, the Thai was two shots up in a group of three, Pilkadris and Ye joining Indoneia’s Danny Masrin in second place.

Eleven players were one shot behind on 67s, of whom nine were Indians. Shiv Kapur, M. Dharma, Arjun Prasad and Shankar Das played on Thursday and were joined by Karandeer Kochar, Kshitij Kaul, Rashid Khan, Vikrant Chopra and defending champion Khalin Joshi on the day.

Young guns

At 20, Kochar and 18-year-old Kaul were the two youngest to climb the leader-board on a day there were birdies in plenty, but not enough to challenge the leader. While Kaul kept a clean slate with five birdies, Rashid Khan, Kochar and Chopra had six birdies each against one bogey.

Joshi, a later winner last year, had a little more drama with seven birdies against two dropped shots, one on either nine.

Another large group of eight were tied 16^th including Sanjay Kumar and Aman Raj, and Sri Lanka’s Anura Rohana.

On Saturday, the event will again see a four-tee start with the first flight scheduled to go at 7 am. The groupings will be decided on the basis of the first round scores and the tournament has officially been declared a 54-hole event.

Solid putting

“Today my hitting was good,” Kaul said after his round. “The putting was also good, I didn’t hit any bad putts but just that I misread a few. Even the putts that I missed were good putts but they just didn’t go in.

“I made my pro debut in this tournament last year, and I came sixth. As a pro, one thing I have learnt that you have to play well consistently across all the rounds. I have been working on all year on my approach shots, to try and hit them closer. Happy with the result.”

Added Kochar, “Hopefully I can make some more putts tomorrow. If I keep hitting the ball like I am now I’ll give myself some more chances of doing well here over the next two days. Let’s see where it gets me because I’m keen to keep my Asian Tour card.

Few opportunities

“I have just two chances to do that (retain his Asian card), I’m outside the top 100 right now, so hopefully I’ll have a good week here this week. Then I’m playing next week in Malaysia so these two weeks I need to somehow manage to keep going and keep my Asian Tour card.”

Rashid Khan finished in a share of second place in the Classic International six weeks ago, was satisfied with his round of Friday. “I have good memories from my last Asian Tour event here at Classic in September.

“However, I’m striking it better this time around and my confidence is higher as compared to the last event. I’m also making more putts as compared to the event in September.

Solid round

“I played solid and missed just one green today. I was four-under through nine holes and had a good chance of going low but then I had my only bad hole of the day, the second, where I misjudged the wind and landed my tee shot in the bunker which resulted in the only bogey of the day.”

“I kept all distractions out and was solely focused on making good shots today,” said the Thailand-based Ye of his round.

“I tried to hit the fairways and greens. And whenever I had the chance, I would try to make birdies. I’m really happy as this is possibly my lowest round I had on Tour.

“I’ve been playing well. I had a good rest and day off yesterday, so I was feeling very refreshed and was really excited to get my round going today.

Added Pilkadaris,“It’s just the way it is and you just have to deal with it.

“I want to keep playing as it’s going well. I putted nicely today which was my nemesis all year, really. I made a couple of changes in my putting this week. I found some old footage, studied it and managed to roll some nice putts.

“Every hole’s going to be important from now and I’m looking forward to playing well again.”

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