Three-way tie for lead at Eagleton
On a wind-swept grey Tuesday at the Eagleton golf resort, the home boys were made to look like clueless visitors as players who hadn’t even tested the greens walked away with the opening day’s honours at the PGTI Eagleburg Open.
On a day when the putters of fancied pros went cold in mildly chill conditions, course debutant Rahil Gangjee, Arshpreet Thind and little-known Sri Lankan K. Prabagaran scored matching four-under 68s at the par-72 course, to share the lead. A stroke adrift, a group of four players which comprised of Sanjay Kumar, Kapil Kumar, Mukesh Kumar, Vishal Singh all returned three-under 69 while a clutch of eight players including Bengaluru golfer C. Muniyappa were tied eighth on three-under 70.
Pre-event favourites and men who call the course their second home, Anirban Lahiri and S. Chikkarangappa disappointed their motley crowd of followers with one-over 73 (T-39) and even-par 72 (T-25), respectively. Both struggled with their putting, which left the 26-year-old Lahiri frustrated and error-prone.
The 34-year-old who returned to the PGTI through the Q-school this season after losing his Nationwide tour card in the US, was playing his first tournament at the course and the fact that he started early before the winds picked up helped his cause.
The Kolkata golfer was cautious to start off as he cut out the fancy stuff and parred the first five holes before he struck rhythm with an eight-feet putt for the first birdie on the sixth hole. On the back-nine, Ganjee saved shots on the 10th, 12th and 14th holes as he did well to negate the downhill with ease.
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