Disappointing start for Shubhankar Sharma at Houston Open

Houstan: Shubhankar Sharma had a disappointing opening outing at the Houston Open, as he shot one-over 73 on a day when the scoring was rather low. It was the late stages of his second nine, the front side of the course that brought the Indian youngster down.

Starting from the tenth he was two-under through the opening nine but then bogeyed second and then had three in a row from fifth to seventh to fall to 2-over. A consolation birdie on 18th made it 1-over for the day. But he will need a solid second round to make the cut a week before the Masters at Augusta.

Sharma was lying Tied-126 and the cut looked likely at 2-under or even 3-under. TOUR rookie Sam Ryder was 8-under through 15 holes and was on top of the leaderboard. Ryder holed an 8-foot birdie putt on the 15th hole to reach 8-under par before it was too dark to continue.

The opening round was delayed by two hours because of more than two inches of overnight rain at the Golf Club of Houston. Lucas Glover and Kevin Tway each shot 7-under 65 in the morning.

Phil Mickelson, who won in Mexico three weeks ago, shot 30 on the front nine and was one off the lead until a double-bogey on the 14th hole when it took him two shots to get out of a bunker. He shot 68, along with Jordan Spieth.