Urvashi leads after first round

Chennai, August 19: Till she approached the 18th hole, Parnita Garewal was well in control of her game. Sure, she had dropped strokes on ...

Chennai, August 19: Till she approached the 18th hole, Parnita Garewal was well in control of her game. Sure, she had dropped strokes on the 3rd, 9th, 10th and 13th holes. But birdies on the 7th and 14th had kept her afloat, more or less. On the tricky last hole, however she faltered 8212; badly. She dropped three strokes and finished with a score of five over 77 on the opening day of the AVT sponsored South India amateur ladies open golf championship on Wednesday.

If it was any consolation for Parnita, she was not the only player to encounter difficulties on the 18th. All the others who finished in the top five during the day had problems on the dicey hole. Anouk Chanmugam of Sri Lanka dropped two strokes and Shalini Mallick and Lalitha Balasubramaniam one each. Only Urvashi Sethi Sodhi parred the 18th and this superb showing saw the defending champion, finish with the day8217;s best card 8212; a four over 76.

The opening day of competition is not generally the one on which scintillating golf is witnessed.Despite practice sessions, participants are yet to come with the intricacies of the course and the Cosmopolitan club course is not exactly benign. On Wednesday, most of the players were strangely inhibited in going for their strokes and those who did found the direction wayward. At the end of the day, however it was clear that for most of the players their best was still to come.

That can only augur well for the tournament for despite the mediocrity of the scores on the first day, the stage already seems set for a keen contest, going by the closeness of the competition. Breathing down Urvashi8217;s neck are Anouk and Parnita, both of whom are just a stroke behind. The Sri Lankan, daughter of former Sri Lankan cricketer Neil, did fairly well on the outward journey. She bogeyed the 4th and 9th but birdies on the 2nd and 6th kept her in the lead. However little went right for here on the return journey and she dropped strokes on the 13th, 14th and 17th before double bogeying on the bugbear of holes 8212; the18th.

Leading scores: Urvashi Sethi Sodhi 76, Anouk Chanmugam 77, Parnita Garewal 77, Shalini Mallick 77, Lalitha Balasubramaniam 78, Anjali Chopra 79, Sruti Khanna 79, Nonita Lal Qureshi 79, Rupa Srinivasan 81, Vandana Agarwal 81.