Gaurav Ghei achieves rare distinction

The 32-year-old had a putting average of 1.66 per hole, followed by Philippines’ Felix Casas and Hong Kong’s Derek Fung at 1.71 putts per hole. In the stroke averages, Ghei led South Africa’s Nico van Rensburg. The Delhi pro averaged 70.5 per round as against Rensburg’s 70.67.

In the birdies per round, Ghei averaged 4.3 birdies every 18 holes and was followed by Taiwan’s Malaysian Open winner Yeh Wei-tze at 4.07 and India’s Arjun Atwal at 4.05.

Ghei, who played in three events out of the five, had two top-five finishes (in the Wills Indian Open and London Myanmar Open). After the completion of nine events, he is currently 19th in the Order of Merit with earnings of $33,270 this season.

This has been a huge change from his form in 1999 when he failed to win a single event apart from the individual title in the Asia Nations’ Cup.

"If someone had told me last season that I will be playing like this, I would have probably laughed. But now that things have fallen in place together, I am a little unhappy that I could not win the Indian Open or the Myanmar Open," said Ghei who also won the Rs 20-lakh Wills Masters, a major on the Wills Sport Golf Tour, this year.

"If I have to pinpoint one factor that has caused the turnaround, it has to be may association with Australian coach Kel Llewellyn. I started working out with him in May last year and after practising what he taught me, I can feel the difference in my game now.

"My short game was always good, but Kel performed miracles with my long game. Earlier, I was pretty inconsistent and wayward off the tee, but I am much, much better now," added the only Indian to have qualified for the British Open.

Ghei is currently undergoing a session with Llewellyn and is preparing for the British Open qualifying tournament, to be played in the second week of July.