Shubham Jaglan opens with 1-over on tough day, lies 9th

Melbourne: Shubham Jaglan played some good and smart golf in rather difficult conditions for a round of 1-over 72 and was placed tied ninth after the first round of the 14th Asia-Pacific Amateur Championships here on Thursday.

The challenging conditions, which included rain, chill, and strong winds, meant only six players came under par, two others shot par and 10 players including Jaglan carded rounds of 1-over each.

Kazuma Kobori of New Zealand, who had the best individual score of 16-under at last week's World Amateur Team event in Abu Dhabi, shot 5-under after starting from the ninth, the starting tee on the back nine of the composite course at Royal Melbourne.

Apart from Jaglan, the other six Indians had a rough day, though Yuvraj Singh, starting from the ninth, went 4-over after just six. He fought back with birdies on 17th and fourth but bogeyed fifth and eighth. He did birdie in between on the sixth and ended with 74 and was T-27th.

Raghav Chugh and Krishnav Nikhil Chopra shot 6-over 77 each to be T-51, while 13-year-old Kartik Singh (78) was T-62, Shaurya Bhattacharya (83) was T-98 and Vedant Sirohi (85) was T-107.

Jaglan, 22, a collegiate golfer from University of South Florida, wearing India colours for the second time, dropped two bogeys in the last four holes and was one of the only four players in Top-18 not to get a birdie or an eagle on the 17th and the 18th.

Jaglan, realizing his driving has been somewhat "off" decided to use the big club just three times and relied more on the 3-wood. He had one birdie on each half, and three bogeys on the layout designed by Allister Mackenzie, who has a strong connection with the Augusta National Golf Club.

With mixed feelings, he said, "It was awesome. I thought I played pretty solid all day. The weather was pretty funny. I felt like every time I took my jacket off, it started raining again.

"I thought it was pretty challenging. The wind was there all day. I feel like I adapted pretty good to that." Australians Billy Dowling and Jasper Stubbs, who hit the opening shot of the Championship, shot 3-under, as did South Korea's Hyun Uk Kim. The tall Chinese Deng Wenyi shot 2-under and his teammate Ziqin Zhou carded 1-under.

Alexander Yang of Hong Kong and Harry Takis of Australia were even par and then 10 players shot 1-over.

Kobori opened with a par on ninth and then ran four birdies in a row and added a fifth on 17th, his ninth hole and then parred the remaining nine.

Kobori, who turned 22 on Wednesday, is highly experienced and is appearing in his third Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship with a best of T-24 in Thailand last year.

This year he has been in sensational form. A week after topping the WATC individual scores, he is seeking to become New Zealand's first winner.

Earlier in 2023, he won both the Western Amateur in the US and the Australian Amateur and recorded top-six finishes in both the New Zealand Open and New Zealand PGA Championship. He celebrated his 22nd birthday on Wednesday, a day before the opening round at Royal Melbourne.

The Composite Course this week consists of 12 holes from the West Course and six holes from the East Course and the back nine starts from the ninth.