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| March 29, 2003 | Saturday | Muharram 25, 1424 |
Moe faulters but stays top of leaderboard
NEW DELHI, March 28: Myanmar’s Zaw Moe, who fired a course record 63 in the first round, managed only a 73 on Friday but remained joint leader of the Asian PGA Tour’s Indian Open.
The 35-year-old shot four birdies and three bogeys, allowing in-form South African James Kingston and Adam Groom of Australia to catch him on eight-under 136.
Kingston, 37, lies 12th on the European Tour’s money list after losing in a playoff to his compatriot Darren Filchardt at this month’s Qatar Masters.
Groom, who started from the 10th tee, was 10-under for the tournament after seven holes on Friday but made a double-bogey on the par-five 18th.
Just one shot back, in joint fourth place, was India’s Jyoti Randhawa, Asia’s best golfer last year and a perennial favourite at the par-72 Delhi Golf Club, where he won back-to-back Indian Masters titles in 1998 and 1999.
Randhawa followed up Thursday’s six-under 66 with a round of 71.
The 30-year-old started with a birdie on the second hole but three-putted on the third for bogey and drove into the bushes for a double-bogey on the fourth.
He recovered, however, with birdies on the 14th and 18th holes.
Also on 137 was Canadian Rick Gibson, runner-up last year to India’s Vijay Kumar, who missed the cut by with shots with a two-day aggregate of 146.
Gibson made four birdies and four bogeys in an up-and-down round he described as “scrappy”.
The day’s best card of 66 was returned by American Alex Rodger and New Delhi’s Gaurav Ghei.
Arjun Atwal, who is ninth in Europe after beating European number one Retief Goosen of South Africa to win last month’s Malaysian Open, had 36 putts in a round of 72 that put him on three-under 141 at the halfway stage.
Leading scores:
136 Zaw Moe 63 73, James Kingston 69 67, Adam Groom 67 69
137 Rick Gibson 65 72, Jyoti Randhawa 66 71
138 Gaurav Ghei 72 66, Mike Cunning 69 69
139 Aung Min 71 68, Alex Rodger 73 66, Pablo Del Olmo 67 72, John Levitt 68 71
140 Pat Giles 69 71, Kim Felton 67 73, Harinder Gupta 70 70, Terry Pilkadaris 69 71, Moo Jyung-kyung 69 71, Chris Williams 67 73, Chen Yuan-Chi 69 71, Clay Devers 69 71, Sanjay Kumar 68 72, Olle Nordberg 69 71
TWAY JOINT LEADER
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, (Florida): Former U.S. PGA champion Bob Tway headed a group of four players in the lead in the clubhouse after the first round of the $6.5 million Players Championship was suspended on Thursday.
Tway, Skip Kendall, Jay Haas and Rocco Mediate, who all played in the morning, finished with matching four-under-par 68s. Kevin Sutherland, the 2002 WGC Accenture Match Play champion, was also four-under through 16 holes.
Sutherland, though, had hit his tee shot at the famous par-three 17th island-green hole into the water when the horn sounded to suspend play because of lightning in the area.
Leading first round scores
68 Skip Kendall, Jay Haas, Bob Tway, Rocco Mediate
69 Stewart Cink
70 Robert Allenby, John Daly, Matt Gogel
71 Steve Flesch, Robert Gamez, Glen Hnatiuk, Shaun Micheel, Billy Andrade, Joey Sindelar, Sergio Garcia, Darren Clarke, Paul Lawrie, Stuart Appleby, Scott Verplank, Tim Herron, Jeff Maggert.—Reuters
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