Panasonic Open India Rd 1: What they said

Itthipat Buranatanyarat (Tha) First round 64 (-8)

Today’s one of those rare occasions where I play in a four-tee start. I think the only other time when I played like this was during the ADT. But it was okay. I just needed to wear a mask and apart from that, it was business as usual. There was a long wait and it was almost after four hours that I got to tee off. I fell asleep once during that wait. I couldn’t really see where the ball was beyond 250 yards as I’m short sighted so I had to rely on my caddie’s advice. But overall, it was okay. I managed to play well despite everything and I’m very proud of myself.

Danny Masrin (Ina) First round 66 (-6)

It’s not usual to start my round in the middle of the golf course and I just take it as it is because I know the tournament organisers have to do whatever they can to get the tournament going. It turned out to be alright as I birdied that first hole and hit some good iron shots today. I managed to judge the rough pretty well today and made a few putts. The weather conditions didn’t really play up too much on my mind. It is what it is and I just played one shot at a time. We are in this together and trying to see where our balls end up.

Shiv Kapur (Ind) First round 67 (-5)

Mental adjustment after long wait in the morning uncertain start: Obviously unnerving, but don’t think it’s the first time this has happened. Have played golf enough to know this can happen, like the Singapore Open where you do a lot of sitting around or the Maybank when there is a lot of waiting during the rain delays so it’s kind of similar.
We all managed to entertain ourselves quite well in the morning, Jeev, Jyoti, Arjun, myself, Siddharth Semwal was doing card tricks for us, and was quite an entertaining morning. We made the most of it but when but obviously when it’s time to play you have to get ready and it is an adjustment. At such times, it is tough to get into any kind of rhythm and into any kind of frame of mind but they did a good job of keeping us informed on the delays, there wasn’t much uncertainty.

Ben Geyer (Usa) First round 68 (-4)

It was nice to get the full 18 holes done. The weather was not playing on my mind as all I really wanted to do was to play good golf. Depending on what happens, every hole is going to be very important and you just have to do as good as you can on every hole you play.