Sports News | Bajaj Shoots 65 with an Ace, Lies Second in KGA Challenge

Bengaluru, Mar 28 (PTI) The Indian golfers are clearly relishing the arrival of Challenge Tour into the country as the home boys were once again prominently placed on the leaderboard in the KGA Challenge, the second of the two-week Indian swing of the European Challenge.

A week after India's Om Prakash Chouhan played a stunning final round to win the Black Bull Challenge, Divyanshu Bajaj holed an ace enroute to a fine seven-under 65 and was one shot behind the leader, German Michael Hirmer (64).

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It was not just Bajaj, young southpaw Kartik Sharma and Mari Muthu shot six-under 66 each to be placed tied fifth as Aman Raj, who was in the Top-10 last week, and Khalin Joshi, playing in his home course, shot four-under 68.

The advent of two Challenge Tour events has created new opportunities for the Indian golfers.

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While Chouhan now has a card on Challenge Tour, a win in the USD 300,000 event will go a long way in contending for the PGTI Order of Merit, the winner of which gets a card to the main DP World Tour under the new arrangement between PGTI and DP World Tour.

Divyanshu, searching for his maiden title, said, "It's been a long time since I shot such a low score. I was playing well and performing consistently on the PGTI till 2019 just prior to the onset of Covid. But thereafter I had some health issues due to which I struggled on the golf course.

"I've addressed the health problems with some changes in my lifestyle such as restrictions in my diet. These changes along with my self-belief have helped me get my game back on track.

"I had an excellent start today and the hole-in-one on the 13th was a huge confidence-booster. After making bogey on the 14th, I came back really well. I was very stable from there on and kept the errors out of my game even though I missed a couple of birdie opportunities from 10 feet on the front-nine. I like this golf course as I've had some good finishes on the PGTI here. I'm carrying those good memories into this week."

Another local Bengaluru golfer, C Muniyappa, Samarth Dwivedi and Varun Parikh of Gujarat carded three-under 71 each to be tied 28th.

M Dharma, a strong contender on the PGTI Tour, had India's top amateur Avani Prashanth on the bag, as he played two-under 70.

Avani is playing the role of a caddie to see top pros in match situation and learn from it. She often plays practice rounds with Dharma, Khalin Joshi and Chikkarangappa, who are all from Bengaluru.

Leader Hirmer, who is seeking a maiden pro win on the Challenge Tour, was T-18 last week.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)