NICOLE SHARES LEAD AFTER RD 3 OF INDIAN OPEN, CHRISTINE SLIPS

GURGAON: The 18th hole of the DLF Golf and Country Club has witnessed some dramatic scenes this week at the Hero Women’s Indian Open. On the opening day, Nicole Broch Larsen suffered nose bleed and had to call for medical attention before closure. The perseverance of playing on despite a bad cold paid off as she came away with a share of the lead at four-under 212 on Saturday.

The latest in the sequence of events, and which livened an otherwise dull penultimate day, was overnight leader Christine Wolf’s quadruple bogey on the final hole that left her trailing by a shot. The Austrian finds herself in familiar territory as she forfeited the lead in 2016 to finish T11. It isn’t pressure she claimed but the “metal fatigue” of concentrating at every step. “This course takes a lot out of you, besides I went quick with my swing on the last couple of holes,” she said on finishing fiveover off the final four holes.

The final-hole blip may have taken the title out of her grasp but Christine looked at the positives while trying to pick up the pieces. Declaring that hitting a few balls at practice would make her feel better, she said, “Had this happened tomorrow (Sunday), I would have lost. At least, I can still contend.”

While it will be revisiting the past in case Christine fails to arrest the slide; for Nicole it was treading the unknown on her maiden trip here.