Meerut, March 25: Unfancied Rajesh Rawat (Lucknow) and experienced Akbar Ali (Calcutta) returned superb identical scores of five-under par 67 to jointly lead the field on the opening day of the Rs five lakh AGC-Wills Open golf tournament today.A stroke behind the leaders were a trio of Delhi's Gaurav Ghei, Calcutta's Uttam Mundy and Chandigarh's Amritinder Singh, each carding four-under 68.On a day when the score sheet had a fair sprinkling of under par scores, dimunitive Rawat overshadowed his more famous citymate Vijay Kumar, who shot a two-under 70, with an excellent 67 which included seven birdies. Starting off badly with consecutive bogies on 2nd and 3rd holes, Rawat fought back with a hat-trick of birdies on the 6th, 7th and 8th, the first two culminating with remarkable 35-feet putts.Rawat's second half was sensational. Birdies on the 10th, 12th and 15th were followed by yet another 35-feet putt for birdie on the 17th.Veteran Akbar Ali showed glimpses of his genius as he shot two birdies onthe 4th and 6th holes on the front nine and then followed them with a hat-trick of birdies on the 15th, 16th and 17th on his back nine.Uttam Mundy recorded seven birdies, but the Honda-Siel Open winner missed three strokes, including two missed par chances on the 5th and the 15th, as he three-putted from agonisingly close to the pin.Scores: 67-Rajesh Rawat, Akbar Ali; 68-Amritinder Singh, Uttam Mundy, Gaurav Ghei; 70-Jyoti Randhawa, Asghar Ali, Binod Pandey, Mohd Maqbool, Vivek Bhandari and Balbir Verma.
