Jyoti Randhawa, one of the pre-tournament favourites, got off to yet another great start. The Indian was placed one shot behind leaders Ross Bain of Scotland and Australian Tony Carolan at the end of the first round in the SAIL Open on Wednesday.
Randhawa, who loves the wide open and long fairways at the Greg Norman-designed Jaypee Greens course, may well have joined the leaders but for a bogey on his finishing hole, where he missed a five-footer for par on the ninth.
Scotsman Bain and Aussie Carolan made good use of near-perfect conditions under a warm sun to bring home six-under-par 66 each. Bain had a bogey-free round, while Carolan had seven birdies and one bogey.
Randhawa, who won the BILT Open at the same course in 2006, was on fire starting with an eagle two, when he almost drove the green on the short 354-yard par-4 tenth hole. He was just about 10 feet short of the green but decided to use the putter and holed it.
He then sank birdies on the 13th and 18th to be four-under at the turn. He also birdied the second and the seventh, but dropped a shot on the ninth. On a wide open course, with no roughs, the going was fairly easy with two players shooting six-under and another six players carding five-under-par 67 each.
Three of the six, who occupied the third place, were Australians, but otherwise it was a Pan-Asia leaderboard with another six players at four-under 68.
The next best Indian, behind Randhawa, was surprisingly Dinesh Kumar, who brought home a four-under-par 68 to be tied ninth.
Four other Indians, veteran Ali Sher, Harinder Gupta, Vinod Kumar and unheralded Gaurav Pratap Singh were all at three-under 69. SSP Chowrasia, making his first appearance since winning the Emaar-MGF Indian Masters two weeks ago, had a relatively quiet day with an even-par 72 that saw him tied 51st with 32 others.
Leading scores (after 18 holes):
66: Tony Carolan, Ross Bain; 67: Scott Hend, Jyoti Randhawa, Adam Groom, Dinesh Chand, Peter Cooke, Lam Chih Bing; 68: Danny Chia, Angelo Que, Wu Ashun, Noh Seung-yul, Will Yanagiswa, Dinesh Kumar; 69: Gaurav Pratap Singh, Bae Sang-moon, Harinder Gupta, Ali Sher, Kim Young-jin, Ben Leon, Yasin Ali, Vinod Kumar, Wang Ter-chang, Mark Brown, Zhang.