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Tricity golfer Jairaj Sandhu takes lead at Haryana Open
Besides Jairaj, the other Tricity golfers in the top 10 were Aadil Bedi, Akshay Sharma and Amandeep Johl, all placed tied fifth at 68
Tricity lad Jairaj Singh Sandhu shot a first-round score of six-under 66 to take the lead at the ₹1-crore Haryana Open 2023 being played at the Panchkula Golf Club.
Rahil Gangjee, Samarth Dwivedi and Abhinav Lohan were tied for second place with matching scores of 67.
Besides Jairaj, the other Tricity golfers in the top 10 were Aadil Bedi, Akshay Sharma and Amandeep Johl, all placed tied fifth at 68.
Southpaw Jairaj Singh Sandhu made a terrific start with birdies on the 10th and 11th, driving the green on the latter and a 20-feet eagle conversion on the 12th. The 26-year-old from Chandigarh then went on to add three more birdies and a bogey to his card.
Reflecting on his performance, Jairaj said, “The course is like a second home course to me because I play here quite often so I’m quite familiar with the conditions here and that helped me in today’s round. The Panchkula Golf Club has done an outstanding job to get the course in great shape for this event despite the damage done by the heavy rains during the monsoon.”
“The key for me today was being patient and not getting carried away despite the great start I had as I was four-under through the first three holes. It’s easy to get ahead of yourself in such situations but I didn’t let that happen,” he added.
Notably, the Haryana Open returned to the PGTI schedule after 12 years.
Besides Chandigarh’s Yuvraj Singh Sandhu, the other notable names representing the Tricity at the event are those of Chandigarh’s Abhijit Singh Chadha, Akshay Sharma, Harendra Gupta, Angad Cheema, Amrit Lal, Ranjit Singh, Amandeep Johl, Harmeet Kahlon, Gurbaaz Mann, Amritinder Singh, Rajiv Kumar Jatiwal as well as Panchkula’s Aadil Bedi and Chandimandir’s Ravi Kumar.
The foreign names in the field besides Sri Lankan Mithun Perera are those of N Thangaraja and K Prabagaran, also from Sri Lanka, Bangladeshis Jamal Hossain, Badal Hossain, Md Akbar Hossain, American Varun Chopra, Nepal’s Sukra Bahadur Rai, Canada’s Sukhraj Singh Gill and Andorra’s Kevin Esteve Rigaill.
Two of the three amateurs participating, Abhishek Kumar and Ankush Saroha, are from the Panchkula Golf Club.
