Chennai, Aug 23 (PTI) Chandigarh's Karandeep Kochhar shot a fine seven-under 65 in the opening round to make a brisk start at the Chennai Open Golf Championship here on Tuesday.

Sri Lankan N Thangaraja was placed second at 66, while last week's winner Khalin Joshi of Bengaluru was third at 67 at the Rs 50 lakh event.

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Greater Noida's Arjun Sharma, the runner-up at last week's event in Coimbatore, struck a hole-in-one on the sixth during his round of 69 that placed him at tied ninth.

Karandeep, who made a last-minute decision to head to Chennai as he was on the waiting list for this week's Asian Tour event, put together four straight birdies from the second through the fifth, thanks to some quality hitting and wedge shots.

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The four-time PGTI winner Kochhar's 15-feet birdie conversion on the ninth got him going with his mid-range putts, an aspect he was struggling with till then.

Karandeep, one of the pre-event favourites, then added three more birdies and a bogey on the back-nine, including two conversions from a range of 15 to 20 feet.

Among the bunch tied for fourth at 68 were Nepal's Sukra Bahadur Rai, Gurugram-based golfers Kartik Sharma and Manu Gandas, Chandigarh's Ranjit Singh and Hyderabad's Mohd Azhar.

Gurugram rookie Sunhit Bishnoi sank two eagles, on the fifth and eighth, during his round of 69 to be at tied ninth.

Defending champion Mithun Perera of Sri Lanka shot a 72 to be at tied 37th.

Among the Chennai-based professionals, S Prasanth and C Arul were the highest-placed at 37th.

The three Chennai-based amateurs, cricketer Aniruda Srikkanth (80), Suman Ranjeet (90) and cricketer Murali Vijay (98) were placed 119th, 125th and 126th respectively.

(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)