Marcel shows how it's done

Published>Fri, Feb 12 10 11:21 AM

The blinking dots of the electronic scoreboard facing the ninth green had put up a pretty drastic number on top, so Gaganjeet Bhullar's wry smile as he turned around to take a look was understandable.

Home advantage had been the buzzword ahead of the start of the Avantha Masters, but the eight-under 64 of German Marcel Siem, the number to match as the first morning's low-scoring rounds finished, turned out to be insurmountable at the DLF Golf & Country Club. Most of the big home names mustered up just average starts, and Rahil Gangjee, finishing in the evening shadows, was the only Indian in Thursday's top ten.

Gangjee's five-under 67, which included a late burst of two finishing birdies, placed him tied for the third spot, while Bhullar, who was three-under at the halfway mark, finished at that score, tied 19th alongside C Muniyappa among others. Chinese Taipei's Chan Yih-shin is placed second, a shot back from Siem.

Growing up at a golf course in western Germany, Siem and his friends paid so much attention to putting that training sessions often lasted till the greens had to be lit up by candlelight. His "putting was dreaded" by the older guys, whom he regularly beat as a junior, Siem says on his official website.

Valuable lessons

On Thursday, it was inputs from another junior that helped the 29-year-old overcome the troublesome grain at DLF. "I got a pretty good lesson from Vani Kapoor yesterday," Siem said of his pro-am round on Wednesday in the company of the current national No.1 amateur girl. "She was so aggressive on the greens, I have to say she was my putting inspiration today." New fan Vani, who has promised to give up her weekend study schedule to come and support Siem, said all she did was tell the German to hit a firm putt, making sure he didn't keep it short. The advice was obviously taken very seriously, as Siem finished his round with an 18-foot eagle putt on the ninth hole. He also made six birdies through his round.

The key for Gangjee was hitting his approach shots well, and he handled the putting puzzle with a simple solution: "Keep them short." A two-foot putt on the par-three third started his run, and he followed that up with three more birdies before a slightly wrong line that forced him into a three-putt gave him his only bogey of the day - on the par-three 16 th hole. That was promptly corrected by birdies on the 17 th and the 18th. Gangjee, who has one Asian Tour title from way back in 2004, said another one right about Sunday won't be bad at all. "When you're winning your first title, it's all a blur. The second time around, you're thinking about it and suddenly overcoming the mind becomes the biggest hurdle," Gangjee said.

Bhullar had started off in the title-winning form from last week, two-under after the first three holes. One speed-bump came at the par-four fifth hole, where he hit a wayward tee shot and had to lay up from the trees on the right to end up with a bogey. Another miscued tee shot - on the par-four 12th - where he took two hits in getting out from the trees and then found the greenside bunker with his fourth, hurt him big. The double bogey there brought him back to two-under. There were as many as three unlucky lip-outs for the 21-year-old, though the finishing birdie would've given him confidence for Friday.

Jeev Milkha Singh, Jyoti Randhawa and Arjun Atwal shot an even-par 72 each to be tied for the 57th spot.

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