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| March 28, 2003 | Friday | Muharram 24, 1424 |
Myanmar’s Moe sets course record
NEW DELHI, March 27: Myanmar’s Zaw Moe fired a course record nine-under-par 63 to storm into a two-shot lead after the first round of the Asian Tour’s $300,000 Indian Open championship on Thursday.
The 35-year-old Moe struck nine birdies in a bogey-free round in which everything fell into place for him and he beat the previous record of eight-under 64, jointly held by Canada’s Remy Bouchard and Indians Arjun Singh and Rohtas Singh.
“It was just one of those days,” Moe told reporters. “I hit the ball well off the tee, got my irons close and stroked the putts nicely. I just have to play the same way over the next three days.”
Two strokes behind Moe on 65 was Canada’s Rick Gibson, who finished runner-up to Indian Vijay Kumar last year. The 41-year-old shot two eagles — at the 14th and the 16th holes — to go with his three birdies.
A shot further back on 66 was Indian Jyoti Randhawa, who was Asia’s best golfer last year and a has in the past had great success at the par-72 Delhi Golf Club, winning back-to-back Indian Masters titles in 1998 and 1999.
“I wasn’t hitting the ball all that well, so I had to be a little careful,” said Randhawa, who had four birdies to go with an eagle on the 8th hole, where he hit a two-iron to within six feet.
“But I took all my chances and my putting was the saving grace. I’d say performance-wise I was about 70 percent.”
Arjun Atwal, who beat European number one Retief Goosen of South Africa by four shots to win the Malaysian Open last week, kept himself in the hunt with a three-under 69 that put him in joint 14th place with 14 others.
Atwal was on level par after 15 holes, but birdied the last three with some stunning iron play, including a chip-in from the greenside bunker on the par-three 17th.
But the 30-year-old from Calcutta, who won the Indian Open in 2000 and is currently in ninth place on the European Tour’s money list, four-putted from 25 feet at the sixth hole.
“I played an okay round, but my putting was not all that great,” Atwal told reporters.
“The four-putt on the sixth was quite unbelievable. I’ll have do better than that to win the tournament.”
Leading first round scores:
63 Zaw Moe
65 Rick Gibson
66 Jyoti Randhawa
67 Pablo Del Olmo, Kevin Pomarleau, Chris Williams, Kim Felton, Adam Groom
68 Lee Joon-suk, Jon Levitt, Chris Rodgers, Soe Kyaw Naing, Sanjay Kumar
69 Digvijay Singh, Pat Giles, Dong Yi, Terry Pilkadaris, Mo Joong-kyung, Adam Fraser, Aaron Meeks, Arjun Atwal, James Kingston, Mike Cunning, Chen Yuan-chi, Clay Devers, Amritinder Singh, Olle Nordberg, David Schuster.—Reuters
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