Indian sports wrap, July 23: Pranavi Urs returns to action at Scottish Open 

GOLF

Pranavi back from injury in Scottish Open

After recovering from an injury sustained in May, Indian golfer Pranavi Urs returns to action at the USD 2 million ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open beginning at the Dundonald Links here on Thursday.

Other Indians in the field are the in-form Diksha Dagar and Tvesa Malik. Rookie Avani Prashanth and Hitaashee Bakshi failed to make the field.

Pranavi, who won the Hero Women’s Order of Merit in India in 2022 with five victories in a single season, has been a regular on the Ladies European Tour, where she was the top Indian in 2024.

This season, after some good finishes in Top-15 at the Ford NSW Open in Australia and Investec SA Women’s Open, she played and made the cut a Aramco Korea, but hurt her wrist.

It got so bad that she withdrew after the first round in the following week at the Dutch Ladies Open. That was in mid-May and she has not played since then. She is now 81st on the Order of Merit.

PTI

GOLF

Late birdies help Neha take one-shot lead

Two sets of back-to-back birdies and another late birdie saw a resurgent Neha Tripathi take a one-shot lead in the 10th Leg of the Women’s Pro Golf Tour at the Zion Hills Golf County course.

Neha, who was the runner-up last week in the ninth leg, had five birdies against two bogeys in a round of 3-under 69 which gave her a one-shot lead over Durga Nittur (70).

The only other player other than Neha and Durga to get a score of par or better was Ridhima Dilawari, who shot even par 72 and it included two birdies in the last four holes in the first round.

Neha, who is just getting back to form after being ridden with injuries over the past year, had back-to-back birdies on the second and the third, and parred the other six holes on the front nine.

She began the back nine with two straight bogeys but picked three birdies on the 14th, 15th, and 17th.

PTI

GOLF

Mahreen, Arshvant lead Indian challenge a US Kids World Teen Golf C’ship

Two of India’s most decorated teenage golfers, Mahreen Bhatia and Arshvant Srivastava will lead the Indian challenge at this week’s US Kids World Teen Championship at the iconic Pinehurst, North Carolina.

The US Kids India team has six players in this year’s edition of the annual World Teens event. There are two players in the Boys 15-18 and four in Girls 15-18 and all have good experience in and out of India.

Mahreen was third at the 2024 edition and runner-up in 2023 and is aiming to get to the top.

In the past year, her achievements also include a win at the 2024 Shubhankar Sharma Invitationals and she was second at the 2024 at the Tommy Fleetwood International Pathway Series Pres by DP and also won the FCG Callaway World Juniors in the US in July last year.

She was also in the Top-5 of the Faldo Series Asia Grand Final.

Arshvant comes in with a lot of experience from US Kids events in the past few years and has two good wins on domestic circuit in 2024 at the NCR Cup Juniors and the Greens to Glory event and was the runner-up at US Kids Indian Championship.

This season he has had Top-5 finishes in US Kids China, US Kids Thailand and the Faldo Series Asia Grand final and was seventh in the US Kids UAE.

Vihaan Jain played the 2024 US Kids World Teens in 2024 and was T-13 with Arshvant also in the field.

Asara Sawhney was T-7 in 2024 US Kids, while Anushka Gupta and Ayesha Gupta also hold a lot of promise.

The week after the US Kids Teen Championship, India will be fielding a 14-member squad at the US kids for ages 6 and above and the event will be held at Pinehurst.