The Hindu : Sport / Golf : Rafick Ali on song

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 07, 2005

Sport

Sport - Golf

Rafick Ali on song

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 6. Rafick Ali fired a nine-under 61 as professional golf made a memorable debut at the par-70 Qutab Golf Course here with the Rs. 10-lakh DDA Open on Wednesday.

On a day when 65 golfers broke par and 13 others shot par rounds, Rafick was a stroke ahead of C. Muniyappa and Yusuf Ali. Ashok Kumar carded a 63, one better than Tour leader Mukesh Kumar and amateur Vikrant Chopra.

Going by the first day's cards, a never-before sub-par `cut' on Thursday is likely. If that happens, it will be another `first' in the history of the Indian Tour.

After the professionals had tackled the merciless tree-lined Delhi Golf Club course last weekend, this `young' course here posed no real challenge to them. Relying on hitting straight and long, most pros reached the greens in regulation and collected birdies fairly regularly. Considering that it is a public course, it is truly incredible that the greens are in such fine shape. In fact, in a rare occurrence, the top five golfers on the leader board fired one `eagle' each.

Flawless

Rafick brought in a flawless round, studded with seven birdies and an eagle. Muniyappa, despite an opening-hole bogey, fired birdies on four successive holes and followed it up with an eagle on the par-4 eighth. On the inward nine, Muniyappa had three more birdies. Yusuf Ali had an equally eventful round that included an eagle and seven birdies.

Ashok Kumar, solely in the fourth spot, more than made up for the bogey on the second hole by sinking an `eagle' on the sixth. After taking the turn with a birdie, Ashok fired five more on his way back.

Mukesh Kumar, fresh from winning the Rs. 50-lakh PSPB Open here on Sunday, began from the 10th hole and continued his form by taking the turn at four-under. He, however, dropped a shot on the first hole of the course but shot an eagle and birdie in succession to reach six-under for the day.

Among the amateurs, Vikrant Gupta matched Mukesh's efforts to take a three-stroke lead over Ajeetesh Sandhu, who shot a 67.

The scores: Rafick Ali 61; C. Muniyappa,Yusuf Ali 62; Ashok Kumar 63; Mukesh Kumar, Vikrant Chopra (A) 64; Harinder Gupta, Indrajit Bhalotia, Mohammad Salim, Anura Rohana (Sri), Rajesh Kumar Bawa, S. S. P. Chaurasia, Sanjay Kumar, Vishal Singh 65; Binod Pandey, Feroz Ali, Praduman Singh, Rajiv Niranjan, S. Madiaah, Sachin Nigade, Sujjan Singh, Suleman Ali, Vinod Kumar 66; A. S. Lehal, Ajeetesh Sandhu (A), Amardip Singh, Amritinder Singh, D. S. Raghuvanshi, Digvijay Singh, Gurbaaz Mann, Gurki Shergill, Lakhan Singh (A), Mohammad Maqbool, Monish Bindra, R. Srinivas, Shamim Khan and Uttam Singh Mundy 67.

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