Shaw makes cut on 2013 debut

Austin Domingo. Photo by Karolina Gembara.Gareth Shaw opened with a pair of level par 72s to make the cut on his 2013 Challenge Tour debut in India.

Agustin Domingo stormed into the first round lead in the Challenge Tour’s season-opening Gujarat Kensville Challenge as he set a new course record at Kensville Golf and Country Club with a six under par 66.

Shaw had three birdies and three bogeys in his opening round and then followed that with another 72 early on Friday to lie six shots behind clubhouse leader Shiv Kapur (67-71) on level par and move safely into the weekend.

Domingo opened up a one shot advantage over Scotland’s Andrew McArthur and Kapur after the opening day at the sun-kissed venue outside the western Indian city of Ahmedabad despite staying up until the early hours to watch his beloved FC Barcelona draw 1-1 with Real Madrid in the first leg of the Spanish Cup.

“I am a huge Barcelona fan,” he said. “The match ended at 3.15 in the morning and then I went to bed until about 10.30 this morning but it all went well today thankfully!”

“I’m really happy to have a course record,” added Domingo, whose uncle is former European Tour player and winner on the Senior Tour, Domingo Hospital. “I had one as an amateur at a new course way back when I was young but this is the first time since then.

“I didn’t expect to have such a good day. I have only been training for three weeks and I didn’t feel too good going into this tournament but everything just went well.

“I started well but didn’t make any of my birdie putts and then I chipped in at the second hole for birdie so that gave me a boost and the putts on the final two holes were really nice.”

First round scores

66 A Domingo (Esp),

67 S Kapur (Ind), A McArthur (Sco),

68 V Riu (Fra), J Glennemo (Swe), W Booth (Sco),

69 M Perera (Sri), G Murray (Sco), A Pavan (Ita), J Dantorp (Swe), F McGuirk (Eng),

70 O Chouhan (Ind), T Sluiter (Ned), S Tiley (Eng), B Koepka (USA), A Malik (Ind), F Praegant (Aut), J Lima (Por), V Singh (Ind),

71 G Bhullar (Ind), P Uihlein (USA), L Jensen (Den), R Khan (Ind), S O’Hara (Sco), F Colombo (Ita), R Enoch (Wal), H Rai (Ind), T Pilkadaris (Aus),

72 K Joshi (Ind), J Ruth (Eng), D Vancsik (Arg), R Sharma (Ind), D Denison (Eng), D Kemmer (USA), B Parker (Eng), R Murthy (Ind), G Ghei (Ind), R Gangjee (Ind), R Bajaj (Ind), S Barr (Aus), G Shaw (Nir), D Wuensche (Ger),

73 C Ford (Eng), A Singh Chadha (Ind), T Hatton (Eng), D Singh (Ind), A Sandhu (Ind), S Das (Ind), C Kumar (Ind), D Bajaj (Ind), B An (Kor), S Hutsby (Eng), A Tiwana (Ind), M Kumar (Ind), C Kim (USA), A Sher (Ind), R Beem (USA), S Engell Andersen (Ken), D Im (USA), J Barnes (Eng), J Garcia Pinto (Esp), P Archer (Eng), M Ali (Ind),

74 A Bernadet (Fra), D Brooks (Eng), S Bhaduri (Ind), J Garcia (Esp), S Chikkarangappa (Ind), A Singh Chauhan (Ind), H Baisoya (Ind), A Kuhar (Ind), F De Vries (Ned), T Haylock (Eng),

75 D Singh Kullar (Ind), T Murray (Eng), J Moul (Eng), N Ravano (Ita), B Hebert (Fra), R Davies (Wal), V Kumar (Ind), A Jha (Ind), P Kumar (Ind), S Sharma (Ind),

76 N Mandal (Ind), M Glauert (Ger), R Hilton (Ind), N Dawar (Ind), H Bacher (Aut), R Russell (Sco), K Bhasin (Aus), A Cheema (Ind), G Delhi (Ind), R Ali Mollah (Ind), S Sharma (Ind), A Velasco (Esp), R Ghotra (Ind), J Senior (Eng), S Shaikh (Ind),

77 M Dharma (Ind), G Giddie (Ken), C Aguilar (Esp), P Dwyer (Eng), K Kumar (Ind),

78 D Griffiths (Eng), R Dinwiddie (Eng),

79 J Howarth (Eng), E Dubois (Fra),

80 A Kumar Chauhan (Ind), M Singh Pathania (Ind), A Saini (Ind), M Haremza (Ger), A Bajrang Mane (Ind), L Goddard (Eng), G Mann (Ind),

81 K Vasudeva (Ind), C Brazillier (Fra), K Borsheim (Nor),

82 R Sardar (Ind),

84 B Singh (Ind),

86 R Singh (Ind),