India’s Kapur mixes with the stars

And right among them is a name that many probably won’t recognise: Shiv Kapur. “It’s a funny name in the middle of all those sort of proven major winners and stuff,” the 210th-ranked Kapur said.

Playing in the fourth-last group, the unheralded Indian shot a 3-under 68 on Thursday to lie two shots off first-round leader Zach Johnson. Yet after a stellar front nine at Muirfield, it threatened to be a whole lot better. Kapur amazed himself by birdying six of the first seven holes on greens some players were claiming were so fast that they were unplayable.

His solution to stopping the ball? Knock it in the hole. “Probably the fastest greens I’ve ever played in my life,” Kapur said. “They weren’t green, they were white out there. And (I) couldn’t get the ball to stop.

“So I knew it’s tough to hole putts out there, but you’ve just got to keep giving yourself chances. And putts fell for me on the front nine.” When he went 6 under by making birdie at No. 7, Kapur was leading the British Open — “the greatest tournament there is.”

“I think I was in a bit of a trance there for a while,” he said. Kapur’s round came out of the blue. The son of a stockbroker in New Delhi, his only victory of note came in 2005 when he won the season-ending Volvo Masters of Asia in Bangkok.