The Hindu : Sport / Golf : Pappan cards day's best

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 22, 2004

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Sport - Golf

Pappan cards day's best

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, SEPT. 21. Twenty of the professional golfers on the Indian circuit ensured a blazing start to the fourth leg of the Amby Valley PGAI golf tour. Heading the list of under par scores was Delhi's Gulfam Ali Pappan whose six under 64 was the best effort of the day. Close on his heels was local boy Rahul Ganapathy who carded five under 65 and a cluster of other golfers carded under par scores to make the first round highly competitive.

The Hero Honda Open South opening round saw Pappan making another of his famous first round charges. Two par efforts from the tenth tee belied the spate of birdies the Delhi golfer was going to achieve at the Bangalore Golf Course. His first birdie came on the 12th but he followed it with a bogey (his only blemish on the card) on the 13th. Driving with his three wood, Pappan landed plop into the fairway bunker. His woes on the 13th were compounded with a three putt on the green. But Pappan shrugged off the error and went on a birdie spree after that. The 14th, 16th, 18th, 2nd, 5th and 8th were great efforts and as he noted afterwards, "it was one of those days when everything fell into place."

Pappan however knows his flashing starts usually peter out and he is keen to keep the momentum going here at the BGC.

Rahul Ganapathy too had a great opening round. A missed eagle on the 14th and a total of seven birdies studded his card for the day. But for a couple of bogeys on the 9th and 16th his card would have been brilliant. Rahul was keen to improve his putting and he was back on the practice greens trying to sharpen his skills for the next three rounds.

Gaurav Diwan, Jumman, R. Murthy, Ranjit Singh, Shamim Khan and Suleiman Ali also had great opening rounds with all six coming up with three under 67 efforts for the day.

The scores: (first round): 64-Pappan; 65-Rahul Ganapathy; 67-R. Murthy, Shamim Khan, Jumman, Suleiman Ali, Gaurav Diwan and Ranjit Singh; 68-Rafiq Ali, Basad Ali, Shiv Prakash, Naman Dawar and Chini Ali; 69-Ajay Gupta, Mukesh Kumar, Vishal Singh, Amit Dubey, Dinesh Kumar, Magan Subba Rao and Jaiveer Virk.

Amateurs: 74-Anand Srinivas; 81-Pradeep Krishna and R.N. Shashank.

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