Jamshedpur, Feb 4 (IANS): Pune’s Divyansh Dubey returned a five-under 66 to take the first-round lead at the Final Qualifying Stage of the TATA Steel PGTI Qualifying School 2025 being played at the Golmuri Golf Course. Ten golfers were bunched in tied second place with scores of 67. This group included the seasoned Arjun Singh, amateur Anant Singh Ahlawat and foreigners Koichiro Sato of the United States and Md Solayeman of Bangladesh.

Twenty-one-year-old Divyansh Dubey, who turned professional three years back, was off to a cracking start as he scored birdies on the 11th and 13th where his approach shots landed within one foot and three feet of the pin respectively. Divyansh, a joint runner-up on the PGTI last season, picked up three more birdies on the back-nine which included a great recovery from the lip of the water hazard.

Dubey had a relatively quieter front-nine with two birdies and two bogeys. He made some quality up and downs for a birdie and a couple of pars on the front-nine.

Divyansh said, “I just stuck to my gameplan and executed it well. The great start did me a lot of good. I drew confidence from a couple of good performances I had on the PGTI last year.”

The top 80 players (+ ties) will make the cut after round two of the Final Qualifying Stage. At the end of round four, the top 32 players (+ ties) will earn their full cards for the 2025 PGTI season.