Gallacher, Suri in lead on day one

Stephen Gallacher of Scotland and Julian Suri of the United States fired cards of 67 to share the lead in the opening round of the Hero Indian Open at the DLF Golf and Country Club on Thursday.

Gallacher closed his round with an eagle to finish five-under. He also had five birdies, one bogey and one double bogey. Suri, with seven birdies, including one on the 18th through a superb bunker shot, caught up with Gallacher at the top of the leaderboard.

Trailing them by a stroke were South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Swede Robert Karlsson, Spaniard Pablo Larrazábal and Thai Prom Meesawat. Last week’s winner Scott Hend and local hero Shubhankar Sharma were two shots behind in a nine-man group in tied seventh place.

The play was abandoned at 6.40 pm due to fading light. Three players will return on Friday morning to resume their first round.

Sharma hit one eagle, three birdies and two bogeys, and was satisfied with his effort. “The greens are a lot softer compared to last year’s. Three-under-par is a good score to start out the tournament especially on this golf course. You need to have a good start to keep the momentum going the next few days,” said Sharma. “I think I played very well today and didn’t make too many mistakes. I missed a couple of key putts on the front nine. Made a silly mistake on six and seven but apart from those holes I am pretty happy with how I finished.”

Gallacher, a three-time European Tour winner, found it to be “a strategic course.”

“I don’t think you need to be the longest player on the Tour to play it, I think you’ve just got to plot your way around it,” he said.

Meanwhile, Rahil Gangjee mixed three birdies with a bogey during his round of 70. The other Indians who got off to a decent start were Om Prakash Chouhan (71) in tied 28th place as well as Gaganjeet Bhullar (72) and Rashid Khan (72) who were both in tied 46th place.

Shiv Kapur (74) and two-time Indian Open champion SSP Chawrasia (74) were both tied 76th while another former winner Anirban Lahiri (77) was tied 107th.

Scores after 18 holes (Indians unless mentioned): 67: Stephen Gallacher (Sco), Julian Suri (USA). 68: Christiaan Bezuidenhout (RSA), Pablo Larrazabal (Esp), Robert Karlsson (Swe), Prom Meesawat (Tha). 69: Erik Van Rooyen (RSA), Edoardo Molinari (Ita), Ashley Chesters (Eng), Prayad Marksaeng (Tha), Shubhankar Sharma, Scott Hend (Aus), Masahiro Kawamura (Jpn), Poom Saksansin (Tha), Richie Ramsay (Sco).