Azhar stuns with a hole-in-one shot
Gurugram’s Manu Gandas was in the driver’s seat going into the final round as he maintained his overnight five-shot advantage with a three-under 64 in the third round of the Golconda Masters Telangana Open at the Hyderabad Golf Association course.
Gandas (64-58-64), looking for his maiden win, totalled 20-under 186 after three days. Manu, one of the most consistent performers this season, mixed an eagle and three birdies with two bogeys in the penultimate round.
Chikkarangappa (67-6361), the 2019 champion, shot a six-under 61 to rise three spots to tied second place at 15-under 191.
The others in joint second place were Chandigarh’s Yuvraj Singh Sandhu (67-62-62) and Noida’s Amardeep Malik
(66-61-64), who fired third round scores of five-under
62 and three-under 64 respectively.
Local lad Mohd Azhar struck a hole-in-one on the seventh hole during his third round of two-under
65. He too was placed tied
14th at 199. Azhar has now fired aces in successive events on the PGTI. Interestingly, Azhar had also made a hole-in-one in PGTI’s last event in March.
The heavy rain over the past two days resulted in waterlogging in certain parts of the HGA course. As a result, Hole No.3 was reduced from Par-4 to Par3, Hole No.6 was reduced from Par-5 to Par-3 and Hole No.18 was reduced from Par-4 to Par-3. Therefore, the par for the course in round three was 67 instead of the regular 71.
PGTI Order of Merit leader Karandeep Kochhar (63) of Chandigarh was in tied fifth place at 12-under 194 along with Patna’s Aman Raj (62) and Kolkata’s Viraj Madappa (62).
The two amateur golfers from Hyderabad, Milind Soni (two-under 204) and Tej Gangavarapu (threeover 209) were placed tied 33rd and tied 49th respectively.