This is the back of beyond. You can scream, howl, throw away your driver, break your putter and chances are the chief referee would never even come to know of it. But Day One at the Indian Open and no one was doing a take-off on vintage John McEnroe at the Classic Golf Resort here. Smiles from dry lips flashed amid the beating sun and tales of tall exploits were told in modest words from parched throats.
Indian golf's Mr Obsession, Jyoti Randhawa, and rookie pro John Dyson from England took the day's honours with a six-under-par 66 each. They were joined late by Filipino Felix Casas who too shot a 66.
Americans Brad Wilson and Robert Huxtable were a stroke behind, lying second, as were Korean Chung Joon and India's rookie pro Amish Jaitha, indicating that things were indeed hotting up on the course for the weekend.
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Eighteen-year-old amateur Ashok Kumar was up there among the top throng with a three-under 69.
Defending champion Arjun Atwal, too emerged satisfied from the undulating landscape that dots this Jack Nicklaus-designed course with a four-under par 68. While he admitted he wasn't playing to a plan, Atwal thought the best way was to keep scoring as low as possible.
"The guys will go pretty deep later, so it's best to score as low as one can get." felt the defending champions.
Atwal had six birides - the longest putt coming on the par-five ninth where he holed a 20-footer.
Bogies on the sixth and 17th put his progress back a bit as did an eagle miss on the clubhouse hole where he misread an 18-footer upward putt.
The bogey as a feature was good as absent today, what with pros turning in largely bogey-free cards. The absence of the wind on the fiorst day rendered the course easily tord upon as the day progressed, as did the lack of any rough. It then ended up as a putting contest.
Still it was not as rosy for Randhawa as it seemed. The 28-year-old Delhi pro has a score to settle with the CGR because this was where he missed his only cut in India, the Wills Masters in 1998.
Today he had to make 30 putts for his 66. And that high a number would only imply he could well have been sitting with a nine-under for the first day. Birdies that came on the third, eighth, 10th, 14th 15th and 18th may have had between them the longest putt at eight feet, but the truth was that Randhawa was missing short putts all day, and many of his birides came off two-putts.
South African Sammy Daniels who was joint third with Atwal, Mike Cunning, Jim Rutledge and a host of others bemoaned the lack of wind at the CGR. "It evens things out. The greens are hard to read" said the South African.
There may be an echoing silence at the Classic Golf Resort that lends to this venue around 75-km from the Capital, a sense of the languid. But once the sun begins to beat its benovelnce here, there's little respite. The Indian Open here needs more than the wind.
Leading scores:
66 -- Jyoti Randhawa, Simon Dyson (England), Felix Casas (Philippines);
67 -- Brad Wilson (USA), Robert Huxtable (USA), Chung Joon (Korea), Amish Jaitha (India);
68 -- Arjun Atwal (India), Richard Kaplan (South Africa), Prayad Marksaeng (Thailand), Nico Van Rensburg (South Africa), Mike Cunning (USA), Jim Rutledge (Canada), Danny Zarate (Philippines), Anthony Kang (Korea), Stephen Lindskog (Sweden), Gary Rusnak (USA), Sammy Daniels (South Africa), Adrian Percy (Australia), Ashley Roestoff (South Africa).