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Atwal's hour of achievement

New Delhi Dec. 9. Arjun Atwal became the first Indian to make it to the US PGA Tour, the highest tour in the world, when he fired a sterling three-under 69 in final round of the Tour's qualifying round at the Orange National County Club in Florida.

According to news reaching here, Atwal finished the six-round finals with a tally of 12-under 420 to be tied for the eighth place on Tuesday. Chopra shot a final-round four-under 68 to aggregate 13-under 419 and was sixth in the 170-men field.

His close friend Daniel Chopra, a Swede who honed his golfing skills in India, also advanced into the elite Tour. It was a sweet redemption for Chopra, as he had missed qualifying from Nationwide Tour after finishing 21st in the Money List in 2003.

Chopra made four bogies in his last seven holes in the final tournament of the Nationwide Tour to miss the opportunity by the narrowest of margins — less than $1,200.

It has been an outstanding year for Atwal, who not only won on the European and Asian PGA Tours (Carlsberg Malaysian Open and Hero Honda Masters), but is also in the reckoning for the Order of Merit crown on the Asian PGA Tour.

He is currently leading the race and is approximately $31,000 ahead of the second placed Zhang Lian-wei of China going into the final tournament of the season.

Atwal started the day tied at 10th place at nine-under. At the Panther Lake course, he made birdies on the second, fifth and seventh holes to virtually seal his place. On the back nine, he made bogies on the 13th and 16th and a birdie on the 15th, but signed off in style with a birdie on the final hole.

Chopra, who also started at nine-under, made five birdies and a solitary bogey on the ninth. His birdies came on the second, fifth, seventh, tenth and 18th. Mathias Gronberg of Sweden topped with a six-day tally of 20-under 412. The European PGA Tour winner, who has four titles under his belt on the other side of Atlantic, promptly donated his winner's cheque of 50,000 dollars to cancer research— UNI

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