Firoz Ali joint 20th

KUALA LUMPUR, AUG 26: Only two Indians — Firoz Ali and Amritinder Singh — of the nine in fray, returned the under par opening round as Thailand-based American Greg Hanrahan and Japan’s Toshikazu Sugihara fired five under par 67 to take the lead in the $200,000 Volvo Masters Golf here today.

The Calcutta-based professional Firoz Ali shot two under par 70 to be at the joint 20th slot while Chandigarh’s Amritinder hit one under par 71 and was at joint 31st place. Calcutta’s Indrajit Bhalotia, Arjun Singh and Chandigarh’s Amandeep Johl carded identical par 72 round and were at joint 46th position. Former Indian Open champion, Delhi’s Ali Sher along with citymate hit one over par 73 and were at joint 63 place.

Chandigarh’s Kanwar Sekhon and Delhi’s Jyoti Randhawa had dismal first round, both shot five over par 77 and were way down the leader board and lying at joint 116 place.

In what is the ninth leg of the Davidoff Tour, Hanrahan and Sugihara led by a stroke from Danny Zarate (Philippines), RashidIsmail (Malaysia), Aaron Meeks (USA), Hendrik Buhrmann, Richard Kaplan (SA), Kenny Druce (Australia) Yanagisawa and Takeshi Ohyama (Japan).