Randhawa trims down Bhandari's lead

BANGALORE, AUG. 24. A clubhouse finish was on the cards in the Hero Honda Open golf tournament at the KGA Golf course. Going into the fourth and final round Vivek Bhandari continued to be on top of the leaderboard, but his lead was whittled down to just two strokes by Jyoti Randhawa. The day's glory, however, went to winner of The Hinduopen Yusuf Ali who logged a card of six under 66 to be four strokes adrift of Vivek Bhandari.

Vivek Bhandari began rather badly on the penultimate day. After the first seven holes, the Delhi professional was two over for the day with bogeys on the fourth and the seventh. But Vivek managed to get into rhythm with a birdie on the ninth. On the second nine holes, Vivek was in glorious form sinking long putts especially a 20 foot putt on the 13th and a 40 foot putt on the 18th. He also had a birdie on the 11th to finish with a two under 70 for the day and nine under for the tournament thus far.

Jyoti Randhawa stroked a four under for the day to nudge closer to Vivek Bhandari. Jyoti, twice winner of the Hero Honda Masters, also had a couple of bogeys on the first nine. Jyoti fumbled the fourth and sixth holes, but some terrific driving and putting saw him shoot birdies on the 2nd, 7th, 11th, 12th, 14th and 16th to gain ground on Vivek.

``I am back to being my calm self and got over my anxieties of the first two days,'' Jyoti remarked. `` I have shot seven under 65 here four years ago and feel this is a lucky course for me, I have a good chance of claiming the title,'' he added.

In the amateur section, Aditya Kanitkar, younger brother of Test cricketer Hrishikesh Kanitkar assumed the lead with a card of two over 74 for the third day. Kanitkar overtook the previous two days' leader Joseph Chakola by a solitary stroke.

lThe scores: Vivek Bhandari (71, 66, 70) 207; Jyoti Randhawa (69, 72, 68) 209; Yusuf Ali (71, 74, 66) 211; SSP Chourasia (70, 71, 71) 212: Ranjit Singh (67, 74, 72), Vijay Kumar (72, 71, 70) 213; Uttam Singh Mundy (73, 73, 70), Digvijay Singh (73, 73, 70)Shiv Prakash (71, 74, 71), Mukesh Kumar (71, 73, 72), Prakash Kubde (70, 71, 75), Amandeep Johl (75, 65, 76) 216 each.

Amateurs: Aditya Kanitkar (79, 79, 74) 232; Joseph Chakola (80, 72, 81) 233; Sripad Renu (82, 75, 79) 236.

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