Hero golf Pahalgam: Mehar Atwal leads after the seventh leg

Mehar Atwal

Srinagar, June 24 (IANS) Delhi amateur Mehar Atwal seems to be enjoying her outing at the Royal Springs Golf Course after finishing Day 1 at the top of the leaderboard in the Hero Women's Professional Golf Tour .

With a strong wind blowing across the course, Mehar held on to her nerves to card the day's only under par score of 2 under 70. Trailing Mehar by a couple of shots is Kolkata's Neha Tripathi.

Delhi's Ankita Tiwana and in-form Vani Kapoor along with Pune's Shweta Galande finished with identical scores of 1 over 73 to be tied third after 18 holes.

Mehar played a near perfect round under difficult conditions as she sank three birdies on her front nine -- fifth, eighth and ninth holes -- faltering with just one bogey on the sixth. On her return journey, she finished at the top with three birdies on the 11th, 12th and 16th and an equal number of bogeys on the 13th, 14th and 17th. Neha played an extremely calculated round to finish second with her even par round of 72 consisting of two birdies -- fifth and 17th -- and two bogeys on eighth and 13th.

Current Order of Merit leader and winner of Leg 6, Vani started her campaign cautiously with a birdie on the first hole and faltered just once in the front nine with a bogey on the seventh.Her back nine, however, was troublesome as she carded a bogey on the 11th and a double bogey on the 15th hole. She ended with two consecutive birdies on the 16th and 17th.

Ankita had a bad start with two consecutive bogeys on the first two holes. Thereafter, she raised her game to card three birdies on the fourth, seventh and ninth holes followed by two more bogeys -- eighth and 18th. Shweta carded three birdies on the fifth, 10th and 17th holes but also carded four bogeys on the first, fourth, 11th and 12th.

Chandigarh amateur Tavleen Batra and Kapurthala's Gursimar Badwal are tied sixth with identical scores of 2 over 74. Tavleen carded four birdies on the sixth, eighth, 11th and 13th holes along with four bogeys on first, 12th, 14th and 18th holes. She also had a double bogey on the 10th.

Gursimar carded two birdies on the second and 13th and two bogeys on the third and fifth holes along with a double bogey on the ninth.

Veteran Smriti Mehra, defending her title here, had an indifferent day as she finished with an unimpressive 4 over 76 that included two double bogeys on the fifth and 12th holes and three bogeys on the fourth, 14th and 18th. She carded three birdies on the sixth, 10th and 15th and finished in eighth position. Chandigarh's Saaniya Sharma finished ninth with a score of 5 over 77, followed by Pallavi Jain, who is 10th with a score of 6 over 78.

The Rs.7 lakh tournament is the seventh of the 15 leg tournament.