Teenager Kartik Singh was one of the five best-placed Indians after day one of the Hero Indian Open in Gurgaon on Thursday. Image courtesy PGTI.
By Anand Krishnaswamy
The home contingent in the Hero Indian Open field struggled in round one at the DLF Golf & Country Club with Veer Ahlawat the best placed at tired 32 on a level par score.
One stroke behind him were Om Prakash Chauhan, Karthik Singh, Kshitij Naveed Kaul and Mohd Azhar, with the latter left with one hole left to play when play was suspended due to darkness.
Ahlawat, runner-up at the 2024 Hero Indian Open birdied holes one and four before bogeys on six and eight followed by a double on nine.
A strong return leg with birdies on 10, 12, 14 and 18 against one dropped shot allowed him to close the day with an even par score.
Shubhankar Sharma, Rayhan Thomas, Khalin Joshi and Saptak Talwar fell victim to the tricky DLF course as they carded 5 over 77s to share 98th place with Akshay Bhatia, the highest ranked player in the field this week.
Yuvraj Sandhu, winner of the PGTI Order of Merit in 2025 was 8 over 80 for his first round and has his work cut out to progress at the Open.
Bhatia’s round was a tale of two halves as he began on the back nine with a double bogey followed by birdie on 11.
Consecutive bogeys on 13 and 14 followed by a triple on 15 and a double on 18 saw the 24 year old Indian-American start the front nine eight shots over par.
The 15th hole was a nightmare as Bhatia was penalised for hitting the wrong ball.
Finding rhythm
On the front nine, the left-hander was able to find his rhythm and played bogey free and also managed to recover three strokes with three birdies.
“Generally, I am not as aggressive on day one at DLF,” Ahlawat said later.
“Because there was no wind today, I was determined to post a low score and was a bit too aggressive. In the process, I ended up dropping a few shots. I wanted to make all the four Par-5s count. But I couldn’t achieve that today. I dropped shots after very good drives on a couple of occasions.
“I know this course well and I’m familiar with this largely European field having played on the DP World Tour just last season. So, I’m quite at home playing in this environment and hope to make the most of my good driving form over the next three days.”
Sixteen-year-old PGTI Q School graduate Kartik Singh made four birdies, two bogeys and a triple on Thursday.
“I had one bad hole where I made a triple but other than that, I played pretty solid and was able to keep the ball in the fairway which is really important on this course on most of the holes.”
Also read: Think I thrive on the pressure of must-win situations, says Bhatia
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