The last PGTI tournament of 2020 got off to an exciting start, with Manu Gandas and Kshitij Naveed Kaul making the most of the conditions at Golmuri for an impressive 8-under 64 in the opening round. The Tata Steel Tour Championship will draw the curtains on an eventful year, marred by a global pandemic. Karandeep Kochhar continued his hot streak on the PGTI Tour with an impressive 65, also at Golmuri. In fact, 14 of the top 18 golfers all played on the Golmuri course on Thursday. The afternoon groups were still out on the course and scores are due at the time of this report.
Update: S Chikkarangappa snatched the first round with a 62 in the afternoon. Amardeep Malik shot a 63 to move up to second. Harendra Gupta and Arjun Prasad made 64 each to tie in third with the morning leaders Gandas and Kaul.
Khalin Joshi, Om Prakash Chouhan and Trishul Chinnappa shot 66. SSP Chawrasia and Navtez Singh followed them home in T7 with a 67 to their names. Varun Parikh, Jyoti Randhawa and Amrit Lal rounded off the top ten, providing for a racy start to the final tournament of the year in Jamshedpur.
There were thirty three golfers under-par after the opening round, with Udayan Mane at the tail of the group in T31, alongside Vikram Rana and Sagar Raghuvanshi. Each of them shot 71. Rashid Khan fought back to even par despite a double bogey and two bogeys. Aadil Bedi and M Dharma were in a group seven men at T12 with a 69 on their cards.
Gandas gor out in 31 strokes, forcing his way up with three birdies in four holes from the second. He also shot four straight from the eighth hole as he set about posting an imposing score. The lone blemish on his card came at the par-3 16th hole, but he recovered well to end the day with his ninth birdie of the day at the final hole.
Kshitij made a couple of hattricks on either side of his run around the Golmuri course. An eagle at the fourth was the highlight of his card, also marked by nine birdies and a bogey at the 16th hole.
Kochhar produced a blemish free score, firing a disciplined 65 to put himself firmly in contention for back to back tournament victories. Incidentally, he also finished second at Panchkula before winning his maiden title as a professional in the Jeev Milkha Singh Invitational earlier this month. SSP Chawrasia was the only other spotless card from the morning session, with the genial veteran scoring a fluid 67. Chawrasia got most of his work done on the second nine, making four of his five birdies on the way home.
