For the first time in 11 years, Anirban Lahiri chose to keep his driver aside at the Delhi Golf Club course and put his best foot forward for a one-shot cushion following a six-under 66 in the opening round of the $300,000 SAIL Open golf championship here on Tuesday.
On a day when several Indians and Thai golfers returned sub-par cards, Lahiri produced his best round at this course. In-form Gaganjeet Bhullar shared the second spot with Sri Lanka's Anura Rohana and Japan's Daisuke Maruyama.
Lahiri fired an ‘eagle' and five birdies against a lone bogey for the day's best card.
He was meticulous off the tee and fairways.
Misses birdie-putts
However, he missed at least six birdie-putts from under 12 feet.
“I am not complaining (about the missed birdies). I'm just happy. I'm giving myself a lot of scoring opportunities,” said the leader. The second-placed trio of Bhullar, Rohana and Maruyama, too, had reasons to be pleased.
Bhullar, looking to stretch his title-winning run this year, said, “Shooting a 67 at Delhi Golf Club is a good result even though it could have been better but you have to just go with the flow.”
Good effort
Rohana, who had twice shot rounds of nine-under on this course, came up with another good effort.
“I was hitting it very close today. I was confident of my driving and accuracy off the tee and therefore used the driver on as many as six holes. I hit it within five feet from 140 yards on the 11th.”
Gesture of tribute
Maruyama brought cheers to the Japanese contingent which is playing this week with a black ribbon on their caps as tribute to the victims of earthquake and tsunami. “I thought about it for a very long time if I should come to this tournament. But in my home in Chiba, there's no water supply and electricity sometimes stops. Life there at the moment is quite difficult,” he said.
The scores:
Anirban Lahiri 66; Anura Rohana (Sri), Gaganjeet Bhullar, Daisuke Maruyama (Jap) 67 each; Kiradech Aphibarnrat (Tha), Manav Jaini, Prom Meesawat (Tha), Akinori Tani (Jap), Siddikur (Ban) 68 each; Mohd. Zamal Hossain Mollah (Ban), Miguel Tabuena (Phi), Mukesh Kumar, Mardan Mamat (Sin), Lam Chih Bing (Sin), Joonas Granberg (Fin), Ajeetesh Sandhu, Mars Pucay (Phi) 69 each; Ben Fox (USA), Ranjit Singh, Panuphol Pittayarat (Tha), M. Sasidaran (Mas), Sanjay Kumar and Jyoti Randhawa 70 each.
