Indian golfer Avani Prashanth continued her excellent form by shooting a bogey-free 4-under 68 to take a share of the early lead in the first round of the individual section of the World Amateur Team Championship for Espirito Santo Trophy in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday. Avan, who won the Queen Sirikit Cup and a professional title while an amateur at a LET Access Tour event in Europe, started on the 10th tee at Abu Dhabi Golf Club and had two sets of back-to-back birdies, one on each half of the course. Avani, who also finished in the Top-10 in two other professional LET events in Kenya Ladies Open and Hero Women’s Indian Open, started with seven pars and then birdied the 17th and 18th.
She added two more birdies at fifth and sixth to finish with a 68. She was tied for the top individual position with Cayetana Fernandez Garcia-Poggio of Spain and Sara Byrne of Ireland.
India’s other women golfers, Mannat Brar (72) at T-35 and Nishna Patel (75) at T-76, had modest opening days.
In the team segment, India was ranked third, with Spain leading at 7 under, as the scores of the top two players from each team are counted.
For Spain, the counting scores came from Cayetana Fernandez Garcia-Poggio and Julia Lopez Ramirez (69).
“The layout of the course is such that it is difficult for long hitters to keep the ball on the fairway and then it was also a challenge to keep the ball on the green. This meant that my up and down game had to be sharp and I made 26 putts,” Avani said.
“I’m very happy that I managed to keep bogeys off my card and to play bogey-free on such a course is always a great feeling.” Of the three co-leaders, only Avani was bogey-free.
After seven pars, Avani’s first birdie came after a beautiful approach from about 117 yards to four feet with a gap wedge. Immediately afterward, she hit her third shot just short of the green on the attainable Par-5 18th and then made an up-and-down birdie.
Her next birdie came on the fifth, where she hit a sand wedge from 350 feet to six inches for a tap-in birdie. A fourth birdie came on the sixth when she hit her second shot from 201 yards to 17 feet with a 5-Iron to hole it for her fourth birdie.
The second placed team was Ireland with Sara Byrne (68) and Beth Coulter (71) contributing, and for India the counting scores came from Avani (68) and Mannat (72).
India finished at third place with the star-studded Korean, German and Canadian teams. The heavily favored American and Swedish teams were in tenth place and Australia in seventh place.
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