The Hindu : Sport / Golf : First sub-par cut on Indian Tour

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Friday, Apr 08, 2005

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Sport - Golf

First sub-par cut on Indian Tour

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 7. As anticipated, golfing history was made at the par-70 Qutab Golf Course when the first sub-par `cut' on the Indian Tour was recorded in the Rs. 10-lakh DDA Open golf tournament here on Thursday.

On a windy day when Rafick Ali maintained his overnight one-stroke lead following a second-round 64, the `cut' came at two-under 138, leaving 57 professionals and three amateurs to fight it out over the next two days.

With Rafick leading the way with an astonishing score of 15-under 125, there is already talk of this event producing the lowest winning score on the Tour.

"This course is too easy," said Rafick explaining the series of low scores on the first two days. "Today, the wind made things a little difficult. But as long as you can drive well, there is no problem," declared the leader before adding that it was his putting today that let him down.

Rafick hit seven birdies during the day and dropped a shot only once, on the par-4 14th but regretted missing birdie-opportunities on at least six holes. "I missed a possible `eagle' on the 11th but worse was messing up a two-foot birdie putt on the 16th," said a dissatisfied Rafick.

Strangely, C. Muniayappa and Yusuf Ali, too, maintained their joint-second position after matching Rafick's card. In fact, the top-five on the leader board also carded 64 on Thursday.

Tour leader Mukesh Kumar's second successive 64 placed him three strokes away from Rafick. He was in the company of Ashok Kumar and amateur Vikrant Chopra. Ashok, the man nearest to Mukesh on the Tour's Order of Merit, came in with a 65 to stay in the hunt for the big prize on Saturday.

The scores: Rafick Ali (61, 64) 125; C. Muniyappa (62, 64), Yusuf Ali (62, 64) 126; Mukesh Kumar (64, 64), Vikrant Chopra (A) (64, 64), Ashok Kumar (63, 65) 128; Praduman Singh (66, 63), Vishal Singh (65, 64) 129; S.S.P. Chaurasia (65, 65) 130; Naman Dawar (67, 64), Rajiv Niranjan (66, 65) 131; Ajay Gupta (69, 63), Digvijay Singh (67, 65), Feroz Ali (66, 66), Vinod Kumar (66, 66) 132; Shiv Prakash (69, 64), Amardip Sinh (67, 66), Gurbaaz Mann (67, 66), Mohammad Maqbool (67, 66), Shamim Khan (67, 66), Sachin Nigade (66, 67), Indrajit Bhalotia (65, 68), Mohammad Salim (65, 68) 133; Sankar Das (68, 66), A.S. Lehal (67, 67), Uttam Singh Mundy (67, 67), Binod Pandey (66, 68), Harinder Gupta (65, 69), Anura Rohana (Sri) (65, 69) and Rajesh Kumar (65, 69) 134.

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