Ahmedabad, 25-02-2021

Om Prakash Chouhan produces super 64, Manu Gandas shoots determined 67, duo hold joint third round lead at Glade One Masters 2021

Om Prakash Chouhan of Mhow produced a super eight-under-64 while Manu Gandas of the DLF Golf & Country Club, Gurugram, shot a determined five-under-67, as the duo held the joint third round lead at 12-under-132, three shots ahead of the rest, at the Glade One Masters 2021 being played at the Glade One Golf Resort in Ahmedabad.

Panchkula’s Angad Cheema also fired a brilliant seven-under-65 to lie third at nine-under-135.

Bengaluru’s Chikkarangappa, the winner on the PGTI last week, carded a 67 to be placed tied fourth at six-under-138 along with Yuvraj Singh Sandhu of Chandigarh who slipped two spots form his overnight second after returning a 72 on Thursday.

The unique format for the tournament is as follows. The first two rounds consisted of nine holes each. The cut was applied after 18 holes. The third and fourth rounds will now comprise 18 holes each. The tournament will be played over a total of 54 holes.

Om Prakash Chouhan (35-33-64), who led for three days at last week’s event in Ahmedabad before finally finishing third, is back in contention this week thanks to his standout performance on Thursday. Chouhan hit his sand wedge to perfection on day three as he landed it within five feet on five occasions to set up birdies.

Om Prakash, who was overnight tied third and three off the lead, also had two birdie conversions from 10 to 15 feet and a lone bogey but the highlight of his round was the eagle-two on the 17th where he holed out from the fairway bunker about 115 yards out.

The 34-year-old Chouhan said, “I was hitting my wedges really well from the start but on the back-nine my putting also began to click. The eagle was special as I read the yardage perfectly and executed the shot as I had planned.

“Looking ahead, I feel a four or five under in the final round would give me a really good chance. It will be important to reassess the situation at the turn. If it stays calm like today and there is no wind, I think I have a good chance of returning a four or five under. I’m keen to make up for last week when I stumbled in the final round.”   

Manu Gandas (35-30-67), the overnight leader by one shot, mixed six birdies with a bogey in round three. Gandas made three long birdie conversions from a range of 10 to 25 feet. He was five-under through 14 holes but couldn’t make further gains on the last four holes.

Gandas said, “Importantly, I kept the momentum going today and didn’t really make any errors besides one three-putt for bogey on the 10th. It’s now necessary to just repeat the process that I have in place during the last round.”

Angad Cheema had eight birdies and a bogey during round three. Cheema holed some long putts at the start of his round and that earned him four straight birdies from the second to the fifth and got him going. Angad was also staring at a 64 had it not been for his three-putt bogey on the closing 18th.

Delhi’s Rashid Khan and rookie Harshjeet Singh Sethie, another Delhi-based golfer, posted scores of 66 to be tied sixth at five-under-139 along with PGTI Order of Merit leader Karandeep Kochhar (67) of Chandigarh, Bengaluru’s M Dharma (68) and Gurugram’s Veer Ahlawat (69).

Pune-based Udayan Mane, India’s highest ranked golfer in the world, shot a 75 to be tied 41st at four-over-148.

Among the three Ahmedabad-based professionals, Shravan Desai and Jay Pandya were both placed tied 46th at six-over-150 while Anshul Patel was placed 56th at 11-over-155.