By Rahul Banerji
In terms of statistics, it should be a no-contest in the women’s golf competition of the Olympic Games in Tokyo between Nelly Korda and Aditi Ashok.
One writer has already described the battle between the two leaders of the event at Kasumigaseki Country Club as being the long and short of the event, and he’s not far off the mark.
On Saturday, weather permitting, it looks like being a straight fight between the two 23-year-olds, though with golf, one can never tell.
Korda is the leader on 15-under par 198 and second-placed Aditi is on 201, and everything depends on the weather with a storm system bearing down on Tokyo overnight.
On paper, it doesn’t seem like a fair fight, going by an International Golf Federation report.
Big blows
While world no. 1 Korda is bombing drives to dominate the East Course, Ashok is almost 50 yards behind and relying on hybrids to reach a number of holes, with at least five par-4s measuring over 400 yards.
Driver in hand, Korda is a full 44 yards further than Aditi, who is second-to-last in the field with a 233-yard average.
And yet, the Indian makes it work with a keen understanding of her limitations and strengths. Aditi still hit 17 of 18 greens, four more than Korda in round three.
And then there’s her putting, the thing she practiced endlessly when first introduced to the game.
“She’s a really solid putter,” Olympic and world no. 1 ranked Korda was quoted as saying of her 44th Olympic-ranked opponent after they played together. “Like she’s a sneaky player. She putts incredibly well.
“She rolls it really nicely and there’s this kind of like confidence she has on the putting green. She has some kind of swag on the putting green and she owns it.”
Aditi, ranked 200th in the world, however, pointed out that she was almost 15 yards shorter than normal at the moment after her bout of Covid-19 in May and June.
Drained
“It took a little bit of strength out of me. I was never this short. I was always short but not like 50 behind Nelly and 50 behind Nanna,” Ashok said, referring to Nanna Koerstz Madsen, the third Friday’s final grouping.
Which makes her performance this week even more remarkable.
Entering the day tied for second with the two Danes, Aditi spent most of the day as the primary chaser, supported by her mother who is caddying in place of her father.
“She’s doing great,” Ashok said. “It’s funny, this is the best I’ve played all year.”
Asked if her dad is now out of a job, she said, “No, my dad’s good,” she said. “He’s enjoying watching me on TV and he enjoys listening to Bones (Jim Mackay) commentate on my game.
“It’s funny because he never gets to see me play on TV, he’s always caddying. So that’s been cool. My mom has obviously done a great job this week.”
She was caught and briefly passed by Imani, but her bogey on 18 and birdie by Aditi on 17 flipped the leader-board back towards the Indian.
Korda never lost her lead, though she was not as sharp as on Thursday when she tied the women’s Olympic record of 62 and flirted with a 59 before making double bogey on the final hole.
On Friday, the American made three early birdies to open a brief five-stroke lead, but after a bogey-6 on 8, parred the remaining holes.
“It was very upsetting that I bogeyed a par-5, there’s something inside of me when I bogey a par-5 that I just get so frustrated about because I shouldn’t be doing that,” Korda said.
“I kept telling myself that there are more opportunities ahead.”
But they never came.
“I didn’t have a really good back nine, I was kind of spraying it all over the place, I had some testy par putts, but made all pars and I fought really hard to stay in it really or ahead of it,” she added.
“I made some mistakes, but it wasn’t really easy out there with the positions I was in.”
But she still has the lead, and the confidence heading into Saturday’s final round, which has been set for an early start to try and beat the predicted heavy rain.
In the race
Meanwhile, the 2016 silver and bronze medallists have worked their way into consideration in Tokyo as well after some early anonymity, the IGF noted.
After playing together the first two rounds, all three returning medal winners from Rio were pretty much bunched together, well behind Korda entering Friday’s third round.
Gold medallist Inbee Park of Korea was 10 back, bronze medallist Shanshan Feng of China nine back and silver medallist Lydia Ko of New Zealand eight back.
Ko made the biggest move on Friday, shooting a bogey-free 66 with five birdies to climb into a tie for third on 10-under 203.
Feng continued her rally from Thursday’s 64 with an eagle-2 and two birdies, but then double-bogeyed the par-4 11th. A final birdie gave her a 68 and 7-under total of 206 while Park finished with a 71 and a 210 total.
“This is the Olympics,” Feng said, “fourth or fifth it doesn’t matter.
“If it’s not top 3, it’s no difference. And I believe that we have the best girls here in the world so everybody’s going to try to go low tomorrow and somebody will. So hopefully that will be me.”
Also read: Aditi stays in medal hunt as Nelly Korda dismantles Kasumigaseki
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