Aditi, Diksha in field for Amundi Evian Championship

By Rahul Banerji

India’s two top representatives in women’s professional golf, Aditi Ashok and Diksha Dagar, are confirmed starters at the year’s penultimate major, the Amundi Evian Championship, in France later this week.

Both are coming off solid recent results.

Aditi, currently 23^rd in the LPGA Race to CME Globe Order of Merit has five top-10 results in her 13 starts on the LPGA. In the Rolex rankings, the Bangalore golfer is 45^th.

For her part, Diksha is fifth in the Race to Costa Del Sol Ladies European Tour rankings list with four top 10s.

Both have won once each on the LET, Aditi at the season-opening Magical Kenya Open and Diksha more recently at the Tipsport Czech Ladies Open in late June.

And the two will arrive at the picturesque village of Evian-les-Bains on the shores of Lake Geneva in middling good form.

Aditi was tied for seventh at the Dana Open in Sylvania, Ohio, two weeks ago that was won by Sweden’s Linn Grant. The India star finished on a 12-under aggregate with three rounds in the sixties.

Reduced rounds

Diksha finished in a tie for 16^th at the La Sella Open in Denia Spain, last week with cards of 70-71-72 in a tournament reduced to 54 holes due to inclement weather.

In Spain, Amandeep Drall (73-72-71) ended tied-35^th while Vani Kapoor, who showed a 10-shot difference between her second and third rounds had cards of 74-68-78 to be 4-over for the week and tied for 59^th.

Ridhima Dilawari, who also made the cut finished 71^st with rounds of 74-72-80 at the million-dollar inaugural La Sella Championships.

Besides the Amundi Evian Championships, Diksha will also play the year’s fifth and final major, the AIG Women’s Open along with Aditi, and the Scottish Open in between.

Spain’s Ana Peláez Triviño extended her lead at the top after finishing T21. Lying second is Aditi who has played very few events, but will also be back for the two majors and the Women’s Scottish Open.

Nuria Iturrioz of Spain rallied from behind to beat German Laura Fuenfstueck. It was Iturrioz’s fourth LET title and it came in a dramatic playoff victory.

Late rally

Behind by four shots before the third and final round, the Spaniard played a superb back nine with one eagle and three birdies to post a 67 (-5) and battle Germany’s Laura Fuenfstueck in sudden death.

The Amundi Evian Championship is the most recent of the five women’s majors that include the Chevron Championship, the Women’s PGA Championship, the US Women’s Open, and the AIG Women’s Open (UK).

The Evian Golf Club event field is packed with major champions and first-time winners including Rose Zhang, Lilia Vu, US Women’s Open champion Allisen Corpuz and first-time LPGA winner Linn Grant.

Also read: Diksha Dagar wins Czech Ladies Open to end four-year title wait