Hangzhou: India’s Aditi Ashok struggled with her putter initially but managed to come back and finish the first round in the Women’s Individual Golf competition in the tied second (T2) at the Asian Games on Thursday.
Playing at the West Lake International Golf Course, Aditi shot a five-under 67 and was sharing the second spot with four players as Japan’s Saki Baba shot a superb seven-under 65 to grab the early lead.
“I started really good but I couldn’t really hole anything. Then I knocked that one really close on 18 and that helped. When you’re not holing putts it is good to have a short one.
“After that, I built some confidence and kept hitting it well and holed a couple more,” said Aditi after the first round.
Aditi, who is ranked 47th in the World, was sharing the second spot with three Chinese — World No. 1 Ruoning Yin, Yu Liu and world No.12, Xiyu Lin and Thailand’s YUbol Arpichaya, all clubbed at 67.
Among Aditi’s teammates, Pranavi Urs was T17 with one-under 71 while Avani Prashanth was T21 at even-par 72.
With the best two scores being counted towards the team total, India are in the fifth position in the Team competition with a combined total of 138. China and Japan were tied for the top spot at 10-under par 134. Thailand are third at eight-under 136, and the Republic of Korea at fourth with 137.
The Indian players will have to come back strongly in the second round to get into medal contention.
–IANS