Gushing winds and the undulating course asked too many uncomfortable questions before Jeev Milkha Singh and Jyoti Randhawa combined for an opening round card of five-under 67 which had India at tied 12th in the Omega Mission Hills Golf World Cup in Dongguan (China) on Thursday.
Considering the kind of form Jeev is in, it was far from an extraordinary show by the Indians in the fourball format but still they managed to keep it bogey-free and drained five birdies to lie five shots behind pace setter Germany at the Olazabal Course at Mission Hills Golf Club.
German duo of Martin Kaymer and Alex Cejka turned in a sensational 10-under 62 to grab the opening round lead but breathing down their neck one shot behind was the Australian pair of Richard Green and Brendan Jones.
With Randhawa, Asia number one in 2002, sinking a birdie on the third, it was not a bad start by the Indians but thanks to the swirling wind, they had to wait another six holes before picking up another shot when Jeev came up with a hat-trick of birdies, two of which came on the other nine in this better ball format.
Randhawa wrapped up the day with his second birdie of the day on the 15th but Jeev was not too happy with the overall show on day one of the 28-nation, USD 5.5 million tournament.
"It was tough to swallow. I think we could have done better than that," said Jeev, who made his World Cup debut on Thursday.
"But we'll take it as we're not badly placed," added Jeev, winner of three tournaments in Asia, Japan and Europe this year.
Randhawa too felt things could have been better and said their over-aggression didn't really pay off.
"We didn't combine as well as we could have," Randhawa said.
"Five-under is not a great score but being bogey-free was good," said the European Tour regular.
"We made birdies on the same holes. If we made birdies on different holes, that would have been great. We got over aggressive today. We tried to chip in and tried to make putts from 30 foot which you cannot do," added the lanky pro.
The real test for the Indian pair, however, would be Friday's foursomes format where scores are expected to be higher.
First round scores (fourball):
62: Germany
63: Australia
64: Canada, USA, Spain
65: New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden
66: Japan, Mexico
67: India, Chile, Portugal, Philippines
68: France, Chinese Taipei, Korea, Scotland
69: Thailand, Wales, England, Finland, Guatemala, China
70: Italy, South Africa
71: Venezuela.
