Manu Gandas takes lead on Day 1 at Vooty Masters golf tournament

Manu Gandas, who won the Telangana Masters golf tournament in Hyderabad recently, continued his fine form with a fiery nine-under 63

Hyderabad: Manu Gandas, who won the Telangana Masters golf tournament in Hyderabad recently, continued his fine form with a fiery nine-under 63 to take the lead on the first day of the inaugural Dream Valley Group Vooty Masters golf tournament on Thursday.

In the process, the golfer from Gurugram also set the course record at the first-ever PGTI event being played at the Vooty Golf County at Vikarabad. Chandigarh’s Angad Cheema and Gurugram-based Kartik Sharma trailed Manu by two strokes, having carded identical scores of seven-under 65 for a share of second spot.

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One stroke behind the duo were four golfers sharing the fourth spot, including Varun Parikh, Om Prakash Chouhan, Arjun Bhati and Kshitij Naveed Kaul. Teeing-off just before noon at the pristine Vooty Golf County, Manu logged in a bogey-free round as he sank four birdies on the front-nine and five on the back-nine in a flawless display.

Manu’s awesome hitting saw him set up a number of short birdie putts. His longest conversion of the day was a 25-footer on the sixth. On a course where the players are finding it tough to negotiate the thick rough, Manu helped his cause by finding 10 out of the 14 fairways and 14 greens in regulation.

His golden stretch came with three consecutive birdies from the 14th to the 16th as he chipped in from the bunker on the 14th, drove past the par-4 green on the 15th for an up and down and then made an up and down from the bunker on the 16th.