The final leg of the Amby Valley PGAI Tour's Southern Swing was greeted with some hot golfing action as a stunning 20 under-par scores peppered the opening round of the Rs 10 lakh Hero Honda Open South 2004, which began at the par-70, Bangalore Golf Club course on Tuesday.
Among these, Delhi's Pappan extended his growing list of opening round leads by another number to top the leader-board at six-under 64.
Local lad Rahul Ganapathy, meanwhile, gave his spectator mother a wonderful birthday present with a well-compiled round of 65 to occupy second place.
Six golfers including R Murthy and Gaurav Diwan (both Bangalore), Shamim Khan and Suleiman Ali (both Delhi), Ranjit Singh (Chandigarh) and Jumman (Lucknow) were tied third at three-under 67.
Pappan, though nobody really has kept track of how many he has managed, is certainly a leading contender for the record for the maximum number of opening rounds leads on the Amby Valley PGAI Tour.
The Bangalore Golf Club course is by no means an easy one to conquer but Pappan at his attacking best took on the challenge to emerge triumphant.
Teeing off from the tenth, the 36-year old began with two pars but shifted gears with a birdie on the 12th. On the very next hole, Pappan found the fairway bunker with his three-wood, duffed the ball once and went on to three-putt on the green for his only bogey of the day. Thereafter, like a man possessed, he reeled off birdies on the 14th, 16th, 18th, second, fifth and eighth.
"It was just one of those days when everything clicks," said the leader. "I know I have a reputation of leading and then throwing it away. Believe me, I will be trying my best to rectify that statistic this time round," added the golfer who is yet to card his first win on the Amby Valley PGAI Tour.
Ganapathy, in his four-year career in the professional version of the game, has several records including an Amby Valley PGAI Tour record, setting an individual round of 12-under 60.
This phenomenal achievement came at the Servo Masters 2002 at the Digboi Club Golf Links in far off Assam.
Today, a tenth tee starter, the stocky golfer today struck form early with birdies on the 13th and 14th. On the 14th, Ganapathy's driver, six-iron combination left him with a five feet eagle putt which he unfortunately missed. A lone bogey on the 16th, where his ball overshot and plugged itself in the rear bunker, was more than amply compensated for by birdies on the 17th and 18th. On his front nine, Ganapathy birdied the first, second and eighth and would have tied for the lead but for an unfortunate bogey finish to his round.
Srinivas leads amateur field: Anand Srinivas fired a round of four-over 74 to assume a seven stroke lead over Pradeep Krishna and RN Shashank in the amateur category.
Scores (after 18 holes): 64 Pappan; 65 Rahul Ganapathy; 67 R Murthy, Shamim Khan, Jumman, Suleiman Ali, Gaurav Dewan, Ranjit Singh; 68 Rafiq Ali, Basad Ali, Shiv Prakash, Naman Dawar, Chini Ali; 69 Ajay Gupta, Mukesh Kumar, Vishal Singh, Amit Dube, Dinesh Kumar, Magan Subbarao, Jaiveer Virk.
Amateurs: 74 Anand Srinivas; 81 Pradeep Krishna, RN Shashank.
