Hero Indian Open 2024: Indians trail as Day One produces three leaders – Luiten, Nakajima and Manassero

Like so often in the past, the projected ‘favourites’ posted ordinary first-round scores in the opening round of the $2.25 million Hero Indian Open but that allowed some lesser known names to catch the attention by grabbing noticeable spots on the leaderboard here on Thursday.

Joost Luiten (France), Keita Nakajima (Japan) and Matteo Manassero (Italy) shared the lead with cards of seven-under 65. No Indian was among the top-10 but Aman Raj, Om Prakash Chouhan and Karandeep Kochhar shot 68 to bring some cheer in the home camp.

The picturesque DLF Golf and Country Club held no terrors. The wind was not up and that made life a lot better for those on the course. That led to 62 sub-par and 17 par cards from 144 starters. However, Shubhankar Sharma (70) and Anirban Lahiri (77) had contrasting rounds.

Luiten, ranked 129th, had an eventful round. Starting with a par, he birdied the second hole and dropped a shot on the next two. But thereafter, the Frenchman did not put a foot wrong. He nailed four more birdies on either side of the turn to finish well.

Nakajima, 23, was on fire on the front nine and took the turn with a flawless 30, dotted with six birdies. Ranked 111, the Japanese moved to seven-under after the 11th but dropped a shot on the 14th. Such was his confidence that he immediately picked up a stroke to return to -7 and parred the last three holes.

The 187th-ranked Manasserro, who started from the 10th hole, could have emerged as the sole leader had his birdie-putt on the ninth hole from about 20 feet – not lipped out. The Italian came up with a bogey-free card after taking the turn at two-under. On his back-nine, he birdied the first, fifth and seventh holes before a chip-in ‘éagle’ on the eighth put him alongside the leaders -7.

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Of the three Indians tied at the 14th spot with a 68, Kochhar shot three birdies and a bogey on both sides of the turn. Om Prakash Chouhan, 37, played to his reputation of being the 2023 Order of Merit winner. He had a flawless front-nine with three birdies, added another on the 11th. Thereafter, he twice bogeyed and birdied to finish the day at -4. Aman Raj birdied three holes and bogeyed once spread over four successive holes on the front-nine and collected two more birdies while coming in for a steady four-under.