Twenty-one-year-old rookie Vishav Pratap Singh Gill, riding the confidence of his creditable third place finish at the PGTI Qualifying School last month, set the bar in round one of the Glade One Masters 2022 with a flawless four-under 32.
Aditya Raj Kumar Chauhan shot a 33, another bogey-free effort, to occupy second place at the Glade One Resort & Club.
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The first two rounds of the event will comprise nine holes each. After 18 holes the cut will be applied. The third and fourth rounds will then comprise 18 holes each. The tournament will be played over a total of 54 holes. The par for the course in the first two rounds is 36.
Vishav, playing only his second event as a professional, hit a purple patch from the fifth hole onwards after a quiet start. The lanky golfer sank four consecutive birdies from the fifth through the eighth landing it within eight feet on all four occasions. He had a tap-in on the eighth.
Vishav said, “I’ve drawn a lot of confidence from my good performance at the Qualifying School last month where I finished third. I was feeling good about my game at the start of the day so I managed to make the most of that positive frame of mind. I missed the cut last week but didn’t let that affect my game too much.
“Playing just nine holes each on the first two days, one cannot afford to make too many mistakes as there is no time to recover. I landed it close on quite a few occasions today and reaped the rewards for it.”
Aditya, another player fresh from a decent outing at last month’s Qualifying School event, was quick off the blocks with two birdies on the first three holes. Aditya, who made greens in regulation on all nine holes, made his third 10-feet birdie conversion of the day on the eighth.
“The two birdies on the first three holes today set me up for the rest of the round. I hit my wedges really well. I got some good mental advice from my coach before the season began and that served me well today. There are very few scoring holes here so one needs to capitalize on the greens with good putting,” he said.
The six golfers bunched in tied third place at 34 were Shabeg Singh Kooner, Shankar Das, Harsh Gangwar, Abhishek Kuharr, Vinay Kumar Yadav and Abhijit Singh Chadha.
