Chouhan slips, but still stays well ahead at Gujarat Open

By Rahul Banerji

Om Prakash Chouhan survived an off day at the Gujarat Open but there was no one to cash in as the Mhow golfer banked a substantial lead going into Friday’s final round.

At Kalhaar Blues & Greens in Ahmedabad on Thursday, Chouhan carded 1-over 73 and that was enough to keep him five shots clear after the third day.

It was the third straight day at the top of the leader-board for the 34-year-old, who is a five-time winner on the PGTI. Chouhan’s overnight lead was trimmed from seven to five shots on a total of 11-under-205.

Abhinav Lohan of the DLF Golf & Country Club, who began the day 10 shots off the lead, carded the round’s joint best score of 4-under-68 to move up nine places into second on 6-under-210.

Bangalore’s Chikkarangappa S shot a 70 to close the day in third place on 5-under-211.

Chandigarh’s Abhijit Singh Chadha also posted a 68 for tied fourth on 4-under-212 along with S.S.P. Chawrasia (71).

Three-time Indian Open winner Chawrasia is the only one in the field with three sub-par rounds to his credit this week.

Off-colour

Chouhan (63-69-73), who matched the course record of 63 on day one, struggled to find birdies in the first half of his round on Thursday.

A three-putt bogey seemed to suggest it may not be his day.

However ‘OP’, as he is known, started getting his act together from the eighth hole onward with eight-foot birdie putts on either side of the turn and a 25-footer for birdie, his week’s longest putt on the 12^th.

Some miscalculations with the wind resulted in OP landing it in the hazard on 14 and 16 which led to bogeys on both holes.

Finally, on 18, Chouhan’s drive found the jungle and he followed that up with a missed par putt from five feet to drop another shot.

Chouhan said later, “With the kind of lead that I enjoyed at the start of the round, I knew that I just needed to play steady and didn’t need to do anything fancy.

‘Conservative golf’

“The front nine being tougher to score on, I decided to play conservative golf and not attack the greens on that stretch.

“Finding the greens on the front-nine is imperative as chip-putts are not easy if you miss those greens.

“I’ll go on with the same mindset since I still have a healthy lead. I’ll look to play safe on the front nine and then decide my game-plan depending on the situation.

“Today I found the hazard twice since I was a little confused about the direction of the wind and therefore my shots didn’t carry the hazards on the par-5 14^th and par-3 16^th.

“Putting has been average for the last two days as reading the lines has posed me a few problems. I’ll look to work on that before the last round.

“In recent times I’ve played three good rounds and one bad round at most events. Hopefully, the bad round is now out of the way with today’s 73. I can look forward to a good score in round four.”

Quick start

Lohan (73-69-68) made a brisk start thanks to his putter as he picked up four birdies on the first five holes, all conversions from 10 to 15 feet.

A winner on the PGTI in 2019, Lohan made his only bogey on 15. He finally gained another stroke with birdie on 17 where his approach shot set up a tap-in.

Delhi’s Rashid Khan (72) was sixth at 3-under-213 while Kolkata’s Rahil Gangjee (74) was a further shot back in seventh.

PGTI Order of Merit leader Karandeep Kochhar (76) of Chandigarh was tied eighth on 1-under-215.

The four players bunched in T12 on level-par-216 included Ahmedabad-based professionals Varun Parikh (73) and Shravan Desai (74), and Bangalore’s Khalin Joshi (74) and amateur Aryan Roopa Anand (70).

Also read: Birdie blitz hands Mhow’s Om Chouhan early Gujarat Open lead