Bhullar off to strong start

Conversations in Indian golf over the past few months have had one dominant subject: Gaganjeet Bhullar. So when sunny Thursday made the 20-year-old ask for extra water in the middle of his first round at the DLF Masters,the on-duty club worker’s innocuous questioning of the player’s name had the day’s ‘biggest’ gallery bursting into a gaggle of laughs. By the time the shadows fell,Bhullar had managed to put his name noticeably high on leaderboards around the golf course.

Bhullar’s four-under 68 had him at the second spot,a shot shy of the score of another young hopeful who is just beginning to find his game on the domestic circuit. Mhow’s Om Prakash Chouhan has been a professional for five years,but the 23-year-old has only now begun to show the promise that his coach and mentor had foreseen. Senior pro Mukesh Kumar had followed Chouhan’s first attempts at golf at the army course where the latter’s father is a greens-keeper,and also noticed his early decision of giving the game up.