Chandigarh golfer Harendra Gupta was sharing the sixth spot along with defending champion Mukesh Kumar,om Prakash Chouhan,Deepinder Singh Kullar and Shamim Khan with a score of two-under 70 on the opening day of the Indian Oil Servo Masters Golf Championship being played at Digboi. Australias Kunal Bhasin and Bangalore golfers M Dharma and Khalin Joshi emerged as joint round one leaders. The three golfers posted scores of five-under 67 at the Digboi Golf Links on Wednesday. Lucknows Vijay Kumar is one stroke behind the leaders in fourth position. Kunal Bhasin made a dream start to the week as he chipped-in on the 10th,his first hole of the day. Kunal then had a flurry of birdies on the 11th,15th and 16th thanks to some long putts. The bogey on the 17th did not derail the Mumbai-based professionals round as he came back with a couple of good chips for birdies on the third and seventh. Bhasin also converted an 18-footer for birdie on the fourth. The two-time winner on the PGTI found the trees on the eighth to drop his second bogey of the day. I putted well today and missed just one short putt. I also played some great chip shots. The chip-in on the opening hole got me going. Im high on confidence at the moment as I played well at the Indian Open last week where I didnt make a single bogey on the last 28 holes. I even recovered well from tough situations last week and that lifted my spirits, said Bhasin.
