Piyush Sangwan alternated from the brilliant to the ordinary to emerge as the round-one leader in the Toyota Etios Southern India Juniors Golf Championship here on Tuesday.
The 14-year-old from Gurgaon, who is competing in Category B, carded a topsy-turvy one-over 73 to steer one shot clear (Category A&B combined) of a jam-packed leaderboard on a largely overcast day at the Karnataka Golf Association.
Yashas Chandra, Viraj Madappa and Prakhar Asawa were tied second at 74 while the trio of Abhishek Kuhar, Shubhankar Sharma and Tanvir Kahlon were bunched together at 75.
Sangwan, who has finished second in the three tournaments he has competed so far this season, started on a bright note, picking up a stroke on his opening 10th hole.
Two 20-footer birdie putts on 14th and 16th helped him go three-under before a bogey on the 17th and a double bogey on the 18th brought him back to level terms.
The back-to-back misses seemed to play on Sangwan’s mind as he dropped a shot on the first hole. Struggling with his hitting, Sangwan found another bogey on the fifth but signed off the day on a happy note, birdieing the ninth hole to walk away with the opening round honours.
Leading scores (after 18 holes): Category A&B: 73: Piyush Sangwan; 74: Yashas Chandra, Viraj Madappa, Prakhar Asawa; 75: Abhishek Kuhar, Shubhankar Sharma, Tanvir Kahlon; 76: Mohan Sardar; 77: Harjot Singh Soni, Arjun Singh, D Venkat Gautam; 78: Arjun Malik, Dhruv Sheoran, Feroz Singh Garewal, S Sidharta, Karan Arjun, Jairaj Singh Sandhu, Vashista Pawar, Manu Gandas.
Category B: 73: Piyush Sangwan; 74: Viraj Madappa, Prakhar Asawa; 75: Tanvir Kahlon; 76: Mohan Sardar; 81: Tutul Ali, BC Ganapathy, Kartik Sharma.
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