The Hindu : Sport / Golf : Misra wins title

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 24, 2004

Sport

Sport - Golf

Misra wins title

By Our Sports Reporter

NEW DELHI, JULY 23. Keshav Misra dropped five shots in his final round, but stayed on to win the Northern India Open amateur golf championship at the Army Golf Course here on Friday.

Misra struggled in muggy conditions and the complacency that came along with the overnight 10-stroke lead seemed to have caught up with him. A wretched round of five-over 77 gave him an aggregate of six-under 282, four strokes ahead of Vikrant Chopra, enough to win the first event on the Royal Challenge Indian Golf Tour.

"I was caught in a peculiar situation. I couldn't have been aggressive though I had a lot of shots at hand,'' Misra said of his final round. "I became tentative from the start and kept dropping shots,'' he added.

Misra bogeyed four holes from the par-four third, and then made the only birdie of the day, on the par-five eighth. "I didn't try to do anything fancy. May be I was too conservative to cut the risk factor, but now I think it wasn't the right idea,'' said Misra, who had a record-breaking round of 63 in the second round.

Playing on home course, Vikrant Chopra, was an example of consistency. He followed his 71, 72 and 73 with a 70 in the final round to leapfrog up the leaderboard to the sole second position.

"I started badly but putting worked fine today,'' said Chopra, who made a classy birdie on the par-five 14th.

Four-iron at the tee and three-wood from the centre of the fairway landed him behind the three. Chopra chipped it from there to 10 feet and sank that putt to make his third birdie.

Gaganjeet Bhullar, Sandy Lehal and Ranjit Singh tied for the third position as both Bhullar and Lehal posted the lowest cards of the day.

The scores: Keshav Misra (73, 63, 69, 77) 282; Vikrant Chopra (71, 72, 73, 70) 286; Gaganjeet Bhullar (75, 72, 74, 68), Sandy Lehal (75, 73, 73, 68) and Ranjit Singh (76, 68, 71, 74) 289; Gagan Verma (74, 73, 73, 70) 290; Amardeep Malik (75, 75, 72, 69) and Vikram Rana (75, 73, 71, 72) 291; Rajeev Kumar (73, 74, 75, 70) 292; Simarjeet Singh (70, 73, 73, 77) 293; Manav Das (73, 75, 74, 72) 294; Vikramjit Singh (74, 69, 75, 77) 295; Lakhan Singh (76, 74, 74, 72) 296; Rakesh (77, 74, 74, 72), Jaskeerat Singh Dullet (75, 75, 73, 74), Chirag Kumar (76, 73, 73, 75) and Kapil Dev (75, 72, 71, 79) 297.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport