Aman Raj wins the stroke play medal at the Tata Steel Eastern India Amateur

The top 32 amateurs advance to the first match play round starting tomorrow and will battle it out over four further rounds for the championship.

Chandigarh’s India international, Feroz also brought in the best card of the day with a bogey free five-under par 67 of his own to shrug off his first round 74 and claim second place by himself. He was followed by the quartet of last year’s stroke play medal winner Samarth Dwivedi, Harimohan Singh, local lad Sunit Chowrasia and Dhruv Sheoran a further stroke behind at a gross of two-under par 142.

“I am striking the ball well these days and really feeling good about my game at this moment.” Said Patna’s hat wearing Aman Raj.

He was true to his word from the beginning, rolling in the putt for a birdie 3 on the opening hole. A couple of pars later he found the pins with his approach to the Par 5 4th and the Par 4 5th holes. A bogey 5 on the 6th hole was negated immediately on the 7th before another birdie on the Par 4 9th hole had him take the turn at four under par for the day and five-under par gross. With a comfortable lead established, Aman hit five successive pars before he could sink his sixth birdie of the day on the 15th hole. A slight loss of concentration meant he dropped a stroke on the 16th, which he duly recovered with a birdie 3 on the 382-yard 17th hole. He closed out with a par to card a gross of six-under par 138 and go into the match play event as the top seed.

“Match play is a different ball game altogether and I’ll need to beat five top players to end as the winner. It is going to be very tough but I am positive.” Added Aman.

Top scores after stroke play medal (36 holes):

138 Aman Raj (71,67)

141 Feroz Singh Garewal (74,67)

142 Samarth Dwivedi (74,68), Harimohan Singh (74,68), Sunit Chowrasia (73,69), Dhruv Sheoran (72,70)

144 Udayan Mane (74,70)

145 Vikram Rana (75,70), Trishul Chinnappa (72,73)

146 Viraj Madappa (75,71), Rahul Ravi (74,72), Arjun Sharma (73,73), Md. Wasil (72,74)

147 Pratap Atwal (77,70), Mohan Sardar (76,71), Anant Singh Ahlawat (75,72), Syed Saqib Ahmed (73,74)