Imran Ali leads Eastern Amateur

Edited by Anand Datla

Kolkata, November 18: Local lad Imran Ali Mollah was one of the three amateurs to beat the course with a two-under par 70 to claim the lead at the Tata Steel Eastern India Amateur 2014 being played here at the Par – 72 Royal Calcutta Golf Club.

In close pursuit are Patna’s Aman Raj and Gurgaon’s Tapendra Ghai who helped themselves to a one-under par 71 and share the second place. A group of five players are a further stroke behind at even-par 72 followed by as many as seven players on one-over par 73 making it a tight leaderboard where fifteen players are within three strokes of the leader.

With extensive prior knowledge of the golf course, Imran hit the foot on the accelerator straight away with a birdie on the opening hole. With a sublime drive on the Par 5 4th hole, he converted the eagle opportunity and followed that up with five consecutive pars to go out at three-under par. He dropped his only stroke of the day on the 11th hole with a bogey 5 but ensured there was no further damage on the scorecard with a succession of pars coming in.

“I am very happy to be at the top and need to do more of the same tomorrow to put myself in an ideal position to challenge for the title.” Expressed Imran. “A lot of the players behind me are seasoned amateurs and I need to have the same amount of fun as I did today.” He added.

Second placed Aman Raj bogeyed the Par 4 7th hole to take the turn at one-over par and despite another bogey on the 10th hole, he recovered with a hat trick of birdies on the 14th, 15th and the 16th holes to be tied for the second place alongside Tapendra, who had three birdies the front nine to go with a bogey. He made a double on the Par 3 13th hole but recovered one with a birdie on the Par 5 15th hole.

The stroke play event will be decided on the morrow which will be followed by four days of match play for the top 32 amateurs.

Top Scores (after 18 holes):

70 Imran Ali Mollah

71 Aman Raj, Tapendra Ghai

72 Md. Wasil, Dhruv Sheoran, Kurush Heerjee, B. R. Raja, Trishul Chinnappa

73 Arjun Sharma, Tutul Ali Mollah, Simarjeet Singh, Zubin Nijhawan, Sunit Chowrasia, Syed Saqib Ahmed, H. S. Kang