Shamim, Arjun take early lead at Kensville Open

The seasoned Shamim Khan and youngster Arjun Prasad returned with identical scores of six-under-66 in the opening round to take early lead at the third edition of the Kensville Open here on Thursday.

The 41-year-old Shamim and the 20-year-old Arjun established a one-shot advantage over Kolkata's Sunit Chowrasia (67) who was placed third after day one at the Rs 40 lakh event, being played at the Kensville Golf & Country Club.

After an opening hole birdie, Shamim got his round going with two 20-feet birdie conversions on the sixth and ninth. Shamim's much-improved putting display this week saw him pick up three more birdies from a range of seven to eight feet on the 12th, 14th and 15th.

Shamim, a 14-time winner on the PGTI, then pushed his tee shot to the right on the par-3 16th that resulted in his only bogey of the day. Khan finally sank his third 20-footer of the day for a birdie on the closing 18th.

Arjun Prasad, who finished a creditable tied 11th at the Asian Tour's Panasonic Open India earlier this month, continued to impress with another top-notch effort.

Prasad, like co-leader Shamim, fired seven birdies at the cost of a lone bogey.

Sunit with five birdies and a bogey was placed third while the trio consisting of Bangladesh's Md Zamal Hossain Mollah, Chandigarh's Abhijit Singh Chadha and Kolkata's Raju Ali Mollah were a further shot back at four-under-68 in tied fourth.

Among the Ahmedabad-based players, amateur Jay Pandya was the highest-placed. Pandya occupied tied 13th as he shot a 70.

PGTI Order of Merit leader Rashid Khan of Delhi and defending champion Tapy Ghai of Gurugram carded scores of 74 to be placed tied 62nd.