DLF Golf and Country Club, home to the European Tour’s Hero Indian Open, has a reputation as one of the circuit’s tougher venues. Pablo Larrazabal faced another level of difficultly on day one, albeit self-inflicted.
Scheduled for a 7am start, Larrazabal didn’t wake up until 38 minutes before his tee time. A 10-second shower and mad dash through the streets of Delhi followed, arriving at DLF with only enough time to hit 10 balls on the range.
Not that it mattered. Despite making a double and two bogeys, Larrazabal turned in one of the best rounds of the day, his five-under 67 good enough for T-2 heading into Friday action.
”Waking up this morning, I didn’t think I was going to make it,” Larrazabal told reporters. ”Delhi’s traffic is quite tough. I got lucky that we didn’t have traffic.
“My heart was pumping big time, I was very nervous. I think the courtesy car made a world record from the hotel to the golf course in a couple of minutes, a ride that can take 10 or 15 minutes, it was really wild.”
A DQ would have been devastating for Larrazabal, as he entered the Indian Open with two top-five finishes in his past three events. Lest you think he overslept from a night of partying, Larrazabal cited technology as the culprit for his snooze.
“My lovely new iPhone went back to Spanish time overnight,” Larrazabal said, “Thanks to Dorothée, the secretary of the European Tour, who called me in my room and said ‘Pablo, you’re playing in 38 minutes, you must wake up and go to the tenth tee.'”
Other players of note include Emiliano Grillo, who turned in a seven-under 65 for the first-round lead, and Shubhankar Sharma, who is playing at his home course. Following his WGC breakout in Mexico, Sharma struggled mightily on the front nine with a 41, but bounced back with a four-under 32.
