Jasjeet Singh a sole leader of the field at Golf championship

Pune, Jan 25 (UNI) Keeping a cool head, Jasjeet Singh returned the best card of the day to take sole leadership of the field at the Royal Challenge Poona Amateur Golf Championship.

The GAIL India Limited officer, on Tuesday, said he did ''nothing special,'' while handing over a four-over 67 card at the par-71 Poona Club golf course. Jasjeet's two-day combined total of eight-under 134 helped in opening out a one stroke advantage over joint overnight leader Gagan Verma.

Verma, who along with Jasjeet and Anirban Lahiri formed the leader board on Day One, had a vastly improved and consistent round.

The three-under 68 score, he managed to help Verma occupy sole second spot.

The 'disappointment of the day,' was however Anirban Lahiri, who had a card studded with variety. Lahiri's one-under 70 pushed him into third spot, two adrift of Verma with an aggregate of five-under-137.

With Verma enjoying the 'best card of the day' status till late afternoon, Jasjeet, way behind Verma came up with a solid performance to be noted. Just one bogey on the second was the only blemish in an otherwise flawless card that included five birdies.

Asked what did the trick today, Jasjeet replied ''putting...The greens were medium speed, something players like it to be and the rest is what you see on the card.'' On the other hand, Verma was considerably happy with his game and a wee bit down on his overall performance which understandably could be better considering the fact that he was missing three two putters on the 9th, 10th and 17th. ''Overall it surely was a different round,'' Verma explained.'' With just two bogeys-one in either half of his game, the first on the fifth and then 17th- Verma's round was an improvement compared to the four he had on Tuesday. Comparing his Day One card to the one submitted today Verma admitted that the first five holes at the Poona Club course are ''tough.'' While the 'cut' was applied at 17-over 159 where in 43 'lived' for the remaining two days, the day overall saw seven sub-par rounds and three pars.

Scores (Top-10) 134-Jasjeet Singh (67, 67); 135-Gagan Verma (67, 68); 137-Anirban Lahiri (67, 70); 140-Shaurya Singh (71, 69), HS Kang (70, 70), S Bhahuguna (68, 72); 142-Raj Randhawa (70, 72); 143-Vikram Rana (70, 73); 144-Moiun Malak (72, 71), Balpreet G (73, 71); 146-Abhishek Jha (78, 68), Saurabh B (75, 71), Joseph Chakola (72, 74); 147-M Rastogi (77, 70), L Selvadurai (75, 72), Ranjit Singh (75, 72); 148-Praveen K (75, 73), Tarun Ghogle (74, 74), Simarjeet Singh (70, 78).

UNI