February 2: Nineteen-year-old Anjali Chopra (Delhi) had a round of 75 after 18 holes of the Billoo Sethi Trophy, a 36-hole stroke-play event, at the Bombay Presidency Golf Club par-72 course here today. She leads the field of 17 in this prelude to the All-India Ladies Golf championships, co-sponsored by ABN-Amro Bank and Corex India.One stroke behind is 17-year-old Parnita Garewal of Chandigarh, followed by five-time former national champion Nonita Lal Quereshi of Delhi on 77 and last year's winner Vandana Agarwal of Calcutta on 78.
``I had no rhythm on the front nine,'' said Anjali, who went out in 41. A triple bogey on the fifth aggravated her problems and she was able to get into her stride only after she birdied on the 12th, the first of the four she fired.
``Putting has not been my strong point. But I was happy with just 27 putts,'' she added.
Parnita, who went out on 37, could not quite explain her performance, which contained three birdies. ``I felt that my putting was okay. Except when Ithree-putted to go two over on the 13th and made a few errors,'' said Parnita, who recently won the Western India on the same course after successes in the Northern India and Punjab Open.
Nonita went out in 38 for her 77 which contained only one birdie on the fifth.
Vandana failed to shoot a single birdie after going out in 38 for her round of 78. Her putting let her down, three-putting on the 14th for the fifth of her six bogies. ``I missed an easy putt on the 18th for a birdie,'' lamented Vandana.
Shayanka de Silva, rated a four handicapper in Colombo, did not live upto expectations, coming home in 80. As also did the 1996 All-India champion Urvashi Sethi-Sodhi who had a round of 81.
One to do better than her handicap of 10 was Shalini Malik of Delhi who, after going out in 42, came home in 80.
In the Bronze Division (handicap of 19 to 30) was 13-year-old Pragya Mishra of Chennai leads the field with a round of 85, which is six under her handicap of 19. She is eight strokes clear of 11 handicapperSeetu Puri of Delhi and 11 strokes ahead of another 13-year-old Sonavi Chopra of Delhi, who has a handicap of 27.
In the inter-zonal competition, where the two best scores of the three-member team is considered and played concurrently with the Billoo Sethi Trophy, North (Anjali 75, Parnita 76 and Nonita 77) with a tally of 151 are ahead, followed by South (Urvashi 81, Sonya D Singh 84 andRupa Srinivasan 86) with 165.
Vinita, Kapoor best
In a close tussle for supremacy, Vinita Chandra and Ricky Kapoor came through with the best score of plus 6 in the C K Patel Memorial Cup.
They were followed by Palli S Sachdeva/Viraswami and Rani Goenka-Maheshwari/Mohini Choudhary, both with plus five.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
