Indian Masters: Ireland's Damien McGrane showed no ill effects from his recent tussle with Tiger Woods after carding a five-under-par first round at the inaugural Indian Masters to sit two strokes adrift of leader Jyoti Randhawa.
McGrane went head to head with runaway world number one Woods over the final two rounds of last week's Dubai Desert Classic, where he more than held his own against the American before eventually being worn down.
The 36-year-old, now world number 311, carded a final round seven-over 79 - a 14 shot difference from Woods' brilliant 65 - after twice finding water at the last.
But McGrane was back in his stride at the tight tree-lined water free Delhi Golf Club and joins Hull's Richard Finch two adrift of Indian number one Randhawa, who has won back-to-back Indian Opens on the Asian Tour at the same venue.
McGrane said: "What happened last week is truly over for me now and I have moved on, this is a new week and a new tournament.
"If you are dreaming about what happened last week, you would never be fresh and you would be burnt out in this game so every week is a new beginning, a new start and a new opportunity.
"What happened last week is history in my book.
"It is nice to know I played with the best in the world and survived. Once you have played with the best, everything else is second or third best. Tiger has moved on and so have I, that's the way golf is."
McGrane will now look to plot the same route around the tricky 7,014-yard Lodhi course, which is a far cry from the wide and long courses which are commonplace on the European Tour.
"It is a fairly demanding course and after a couple of weeks in the desert it is a complete contrast," McGrane said.
"There are grainy greens as well and you have to hit a lot of straight shots and luckily for me I hit a lot of straight shots and hit a lot of fairways and holed a few putts.
"It is difficult to get up and down, the ball reacts differently on every chip shot and every putt so it's about making birdies whenever you get the opportunities and try and keep the bogeys off the card.
"If you have to change your strategy, you have to be able to deal with that and be prepared to play long second shots into the far fours."
New Zealand Open champion Finch, 30, carded a birdie-eagle start to his round, which included a 130-yard nine iron into the par-four second.
But he reached the turn in one under after two bogeys. A burst of three birdies over his last five holes quickly brightened his card, which was a boost after he missed the cut last week in Dubai following a fourth-place finish in Abu Dhabi at the start of the desert swing.
"It is very different to what we normally play on," he said. "I think I hit the driver twice, but it's a different course, it's unusual. Hitting a lot of irons off the tees is not what we are used to, but I don't dislike it."
Randhawa was looking to improve on an impressive record which has seen the 35-year-old taste victory fives times overall at the historic Delhi club, which is built on the site of a 17th century tomb.
He helped his cause with two eagles, including a tricky 20-foot downhill putt at the last following a brilliant three-wood approach into the 545-yard par five 18th.
"It was a great round. You can't ask for a better first round," he said. "Delhi Golf Club doesn't leave me alone; it keeps me under pressure all the time. I just think of past performances and it helps a lot."
Spain's Jose Manuel Lara, Denmark's Thomas Bjorn and India's Shiv Kapur sat at four under after opening-round 68s, with Graeme McDowell, fifth in Dubai last week, two-time major winner Mark O'Meara and English duo David Lynn and Benn Barham in a group a further shot off the pace.
World number four Ernie Els, the highest ranked player in the field, did not start his first professional visit to India well with a three-over-par 75 after hitting several wayward shots, highlighted by a quadruple-bogey nine at the 18th.
Scoreboard
FIRST ROUND( Irishin bold, British unless stated, par 72):
65 - J Randhawa (Ind)
67 - Damien McGrane(Irl), R Finch
68 - S Kapur (Ind), T Bjorn (Den), J M Lara (Spa)
69 - Graeme McDowell(NIrl), B Barham, M Lafeber (Ned), D Lynn, R Jacquelin (Fra), A Quiros (Spa), H Buhrmann (Rsa), M O'Meara (USA), C Phadungsil (Tha), C Muniyappa (Ind)
70 - H Nystrom (Swe), M Carlsson (Swe), S Yates, S Shankar P Chowrasia (Ind), H Kahlon (Ind), S Khan, A Atwal (Ind), K Horne (Rsa), J Yul Suk (Kor), S Little, D Singh (Ind)
71 - M Lundberg (Swe), J Gonnet (Fra), C Cevaer (Fra), P Meesawat (Tha), O Wilson, U Park (Aus), M Brown (USA), R Bain, S Hend (Aus), S Gallacher, F Zanotti (Par)
72 - R Gangjee (Ind), P Whiteford, S Strange (Aus), Darren Clarke(NIrl), A Groom (Aus), JF Lima (Por), A Kumar (Ind), A Kang (USA), A Noren (Swe), C Nirat (Tha), E Canonica (Ita), R McGowan
73 - L Westerberg (Swe), J Sandelin (Swe), P Baker, M Kumar (Ind), P Larrazabal (Spa), O Fisher, A Johl (Ind), S Barr (Aus), I Steel (Mal), M Fraser (Aus), S Khan (Ind)
74 - R Jan Derksen (Ned), N Dawar (Ind), A Rizman (Mal), D Howell, S Kjeldsen (Den), J Haeggman (Swe), R Ghotra (Ind), B Jones (Aus), M Vibe-Hastrup (Den), C Rodiles (Spa), M Mamat (Sin), S Wakefield, P Marksaeng (Tha), P Archer, A Blyth (Aus)
75 - A Lehal (Ind), A Singh (Ind), U Singh (Ind), F Aguilar (Col), S Kumar (Ind), E Els (Rsa), M Wiegele (Aut), M Lorenzo-Vera (Fra), G Ghei (Ind), Z Scotland (Eng), R Singh (Ind), S Manley, K Webber (USA), A Malik (Ind), S Lee (Kor), C Suneson (Spa), G Bhullar (Ind), M Foster
76 - Andrew Coltart, Thaworn Wiratchant (Tha), J Knutzon (USA), B Sang-moon (Kor), Vijay Kumar (Ind), J Donaldson, JF Lucquin (Fra), R Ganapathy (Ind)
77 - J Milkha Singh (Ind), Ali Sher (Ind), Garry Houston, Joost Luiten (Ned), Chris Rodgers
78 - A Jha (Ind), V Bhandari (Ind), C Plaphol (Tha), D Horsey 79 R Dinwiddie, S Virk (Ind), P Gupta (Ind)
80 - G Simpson (Aus), G Flint (Aus), Kyung-Tae Kim (Kor)
82 - S Singh (Ind)
83 - G Fdez-Castano (Spa)
