Pukhraj Singh Gill, Gurugram’s Tapendra Ghai and Delhi’s Honey Baisoya returned identical cards of six-under 64 to share the first-round lead at the Calance Open here on Tuesday.
Five players were tied in fourth place at five-under 65 at the Par-70 Qutab Golf Course which is playing host to a PGTI event after 15 years. The chasing pack at 65 included Chandigarh’s Yuvraj Sandhu, who made birdies on his last four holes, as well as Karandeep Kochhar, another Chandigarh golfer, along with Bangladesh’s Badal Hossain, Delhi’s Kapil Kumar and Kolkata’s Shankar Das.
Twenty-eight-year-old Gill, who was also the first-round leader at last week’s PGTI event in Ahmedabad, didn’t have the best of starts after making an early bogey on the 12th. However, Gill came back strongly with birdies on the 15th and 16th to make the turn at one-under.
Gill, searching for his maiden title, then added five more birdies on the front-nine thanks to some superb driving, accurate pitching and extremely consistent short to mid distance putting.
Baisoya and Ghai, both of whom hail from the DLF Golf & Country Club, were co-leaders with Gill on day one. While Baisoya had a bogey-free round, Ghai signed off with eight birdies and two bogeys. Baisoya made two birdie conversions from a range of 12 to 15 feet but also missed out on two eagle opportunities from a distance of 10 feet.
The highlight of his round though was a great par-save from 15 feet on the 17th where he had found trouble with his first two shots.
