Aditi Ashok and Anirban Lahiri were off to good starts and were in the Top-10 after the first round of the golf competition at the 19th Asian Games.
Aditi fired a bogey free 5-under to be tied second, two behind the Japanese amateur Saki Baba (65), while Anirban, also lying second after 17 holes, double bogeyed the 18th hole to drop from 9-under to 7-under and slipped to Tied-ninth at the West Lake International course.
The Indian men were tied fifth while the women were fifth by themselves.
Of the other three Indian men players SSP Chawrasia (67) was T-18. Shubhankar Sharma (68) was T-22 with six birdies and a double bogey and Khalin Joshi (70) was T-32. Joshi had a sensational albatross on Par-5 fifth, and four other birdies, but dropped two bogeys and a double bogey on Par-4 18th.
Apart from Aditi India’s other women players had modest rounds in comparison. Pranavi Urs at 1-under 71 was T-17 and amateur, Avani Prashanth (72) was T-21.
The Indian women’s team was lying fifth as China and Japan were tied for first at 10-under 134 as the scores of the two best from the team of three count for team medals. Thailand (8-under) was third and Korea (7-under) was fourth as India at 6-under, comprising 5-under from Aditi, was fifth.
Lahiri was four shots behind Korean amateur, Jang Yu-bin, who shot a stunning 12 birdies and one bogey on a day of low scores with little wind and accessible greens.
Indian men, who last won a medal at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, 2010 are Tied-fifth, but 10 shots behind the fancied Korean, who have two PGA Tour winners, Si Woo Kim and Sungjae Im, in their team.
Even though Korea has two PGA Tour winners, it was an amateur, Jang Yu-bin, who held the spotlight with 12 birdies and one bogey in his 61. Lying second behind Jang was Hong Kong’s Taichi Kho who produced the best round of his life with a 10-under 62.
For the team medals, the best two individual scores of each team count.
Aditi, who missed an Olympic medal by one stroke in Tokyo two years ago, began with a five-under 67. She does not have her usual caddie, her father, as personal caddies are not being allowed to carry clubs in Hangzhou.
Teeing off from the 10th Aditi had seven pars to start with before she birdied the 17th and holed her approach shot for a birdie on Par-4 18th. She added a birdie on first to make it three in a row. She added birdies on the third and eighth to get to five-under.
Others in a tie for second with Aditi and China’s Yin Ruoning were World number 13 Lin Xiyu and 143rd-ranked Liu Yu. All three Chinese players had 67s. The fifth player in tied second was Thailand’s Yubol Arpichaya.
While Saki Baba (65) took the lead, Yin Ruoning, who is celebrating her 21st birthday, rode on home support for a bogey-free 67 that Put her in Tied second place with four others in Hangzhou.
