Sukra Bahadur Rai of Nepal turned in a best card of four-over 76 on the opening round of the Faldo Series Nepal Championships at the Gokarna Golf Club on Monday.

Rai was three strokes ahead of Bipin Tamang and 10 better than third-placed Sudeep Tamang in the U-21 boys’ category. Bipin carded seven-over 79 and Sudeep shot 14-over 86.

Monish Y Shah of India leads the boys’ U-16 category with the day’s second best card of five-over 77. Rahuk BK was one stroke adrift of Shah at six-over 78, while a further stroke down at seven-over 77 was Binod Tamang, Subash Ghising and Ritesh Tamang.

Pratima Sherpa carded nine-over 81 but that was still enough to open a massive nine-stroke lead over Kashmira Shah in the girls’ category. Kashmira carded 18-over 90 and Juny Gurung a 97.

Rai carded a sank a lone birdie on the third and a double-bogey on the par-3 eighth hole for one-over 37 on the front nine. On his way back, Rai shot three-over 37 with birdies on 12th and 18th against bogeys on 14th and 15th and a triple-bogey on the 17th.

Monish shot one-over 37 on the front nine with birdies on first and bogeys on the fourth and eighth holes. On the back nine, Monish had bogeys on 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th holes for four-over 40. Rahul started with a double-bogey and bogey but recovered with birdies on the third and sixth holes. He then dropped another shot on the eighth for a front nine score of two-over 38. On back nine, Rahul shot four-over 40 with bogeys on 14th and 15th and a double bogey on 11th hole.

In all 24 junior golfers aged between 12 to 21 are taking part in the 54-hole tournament organised by Nepal Golf Association and Gokarna Forest Resort. Winner of each of the three categories will earn tickets to the 12th Faldo Series Asia Final to be hosted by Faldo at Laguna Lang Co in Danang, Vietnam, in March 2017.