By Rahul Banerji
Kshitij Naveed Kaul landed his second PGTI title with a nerveless display in the Rs. 40 lakh ICC RCGC Open at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club on Sunday.
The 20-year-old from Delhi, overnight leader by one shot, maintained his hold on the top spot through the day after getting out of trouble on a number of occasions.
Kaul (69-65-70-72) ended with a tournament tally of 12-under 276 to prevail by one shot, the PGTI said.
Gurgaon’s Ankur Chadha (68-69-69-71) struck a 71 to move up one place and finish a career-best second on 11-under 277.
Panchkula’s Angad Cheema (68-68-69-73) went 1-over and dropped one spot to third on 10-under 278.
Kolkata’s Sunit Chowrasia (71-68-71-70) had the best finish among the local golfers taking fourth place on 8-under 280.
Kaul faced an early setback when he bogeyed the third hole. He then made some outstanding recoveries from the rough to claim birdies on the fourth and fifth and stretch his lead to a comfortable three shots.
The six-footer, in his third PGTI season, played a brilliant bunker shot on 11 to set up a tap-in and save par.
A couple of erratic iron shots then resulted in bogeys for him on 12 and 13 as his lead dropped to just one shot.
Sealing the deal
Kaul wrested the initiative back with another fabulous bunker shot on 15 for a tap-in birdie. He went on to sink a four-foot pressure putt on 18 to seal the win.
“I wanted to go as low as I could but I made a few mistakes today,” Kaul said later.
“Nonetheless, I made some good short putts and managed to pull off birdies from tough spots. I recovered really well from the rough and the bunker on more than one occasion and that too at key moments.
“Even when my lead came down to just one shot, I didn’t change anything and continued to play in my natural aggressive style.
“Just before making the winning putt, I was mindful of the fact that in Pune too I made a four-footer to win back in 2019. So I addressed the ball with that positive thought.
“I’ve been pretty consistent this season and this win is a result of that,” added Kaul, who took home Rs. 6,46,600 to move up from 19th to 14th in the PGTI Order of Merit.
Chadha was Kshitij’s nearest challenger for the title through the day.
He made two birdies and a bogey to end up as one of only two players in the field (along with Sunit Chowrasia) to shoot four sub-par rounds.
Chadha, struggling to find fairways through the day, kept himself in contention with his putting.
He recovered from the trees and made a 25-foot birdie conversion on 16 to get within one shot of the lead.
However, he could not convert from long range on 17 and 18 to catch up with Kaul. He narrowly missed a 25-foot birdie putt on 18 too.
Angad Cheema did not recover after his three bogeys early on took him to one-over for the day at the turn. He made pars all the way till the end.
Om Prakash Chouhan (72) of Mhow and Chandigarh’s Yuvraj Singh Sandhu (73) shared fifth place on 5-under 283.
Also read: Kaul takes one-shot lead into final round of ICC RCGC Open
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