Pawan Verma of Delhi emerged as the clubhouse leader on the rain-marred opening day of the J&K Bank PGTI Pahalgam Masters presented by KEO here today.
Verma shot a phenomenal bogey-free eight-under-62 to take the clubhouse lead at the Lidder Valley Golf Course.
Chandigarh's Harendra Gupta and Sri Lankan K Prabagaran were in joint second with scores of six-under-64.
Play was suspended at 3:40 pm local time due to heavy rain. Sixty-five players out of a total of 125 had completed their rounds when play was suspended. The 60 players yet to complete round one, will resume play at 8 am on Thursday.
Pawan Verma enjoyed a terrific start to the tournament as he made four birdies on the front-nine, including three on the trot from the fifth to the seventh. The 22-year-old added four more on the back-nine. Pawan, a former winner on the PGTI Feeder Tour, attributed his excellent start to some accurate hitting and consistent putting.
K Prabagaran made an eagle, five birdies and a bogey in his opening round to be joint second with Harendra Gupta who produced seven birdies and a bogey in round one.
Indian star Jyoti Randhawa shot a score of five-under-65 to be tied fourth along with another seasoned professional Mukesh Kumar of Mhow. Gurgaon-based Arshdeep Tiwana, Bangalore's Khalin Joshi and Om Prakash Chouhan of Mhow joined Randhawa and Mukesh in joint fourth place.
Raghav Wahi of Jammu fired a one-under-69 to be placed tied 20th. He is currently the host state's highest placed golfer in the field.
Randhawa, playing his first event of the 2014 PGTI season, got off to a rousing start with a bogey-free five-under-65.
Leading Scores on day 1:
62: Pawan Verma
64: Harendra Gupta, K Prabagaran
65: Mukesh Kumar, Jyoti Randhawa, Om Prakash Chouhan, Khalin Joshi, Arshdeep Tiwana.
