Sport - Golf   

Cunning far too good for his rivals

By Rakesh Rao

American Mike Cunning is all smiles after winning the Royal Challenge Indian Open Golf at the Delhi Golf Club in New Delhi on Sunday. — Photo:V. Sudershan

NEW DELHI MARCH 30. Gunning for a major professional title for 23 years, Mike Cunning finally hit the target at the venue he first visited 20 years ago.

Notably, Cunning did so by simply blowing away the competition in the $ 300,000 Royal Challenge golf championship on way to the lowest winning score in four decades of the premier event.

Firing 10 birdies in a stunning card of eight-under 64, the 44-year-old Cunning finished five strokes clear of Canadian Rick Gibson while tallying a stupendous 18-under 270.

The winner's cheque of $ 50,000 was the biggest cheque of Cunning's long career.

``After coming close to winning, when you walk away without a title, you begin to doubt your abilities. Perhaps, I've never got off to a good start on a Sunday (in the final round). But today, everything I was hitting was going to the pin,'' said Cunning, feeling "great'' after realising his dream of a title on the Asian PGA Tour.

In 1997, when Cunning won the APGA Order of Merit, he had done so without a title.

From India's point of view, three finishers in the top-10 was a fair consolation. Overnight leader Jyoti Randhawa lost his way early on Sunday and eventually had to share the sixth spot with Arjun Atwal at 10-under 271.

Randhawa returned a 74 and Atwal shot a 71. They collected cheques of $ 9,562 dollars each. In addition, Digvijay Singh shot a final-round 71 for a tally of 280. He tied for the 10th place and received $ 5,752.

Earlier, the much-awaited title-race between Randhawa and Australia's Adam Groom never happened as the home favourite could never really recover from the double-bogey on the third hole.

On this hole, Randhawa hit his tee-shot into the bushes on the left. He chose to hit a provisional ball but then managed to find the first ball in an unplayable position. He returned to the tee for this third shot and went on to escape a probable triple-bogey with a 12-foot putt.

A birdie on the fourth hole did make Randhawa feel better but he could not produce the kind of round worthy of giving him the title. Once Randhawa faded out, with bogeys on the sixth and eighth holes for a front-nine 38, the race was between Cunning and James Kingston, who was playing two groups ahead of the leader group.

What helped Kingston catch up with Cunning was an incredible third `albatross' of his career. He moved to 14-under after his astonishing second shot on the par-five eighth. Kingston's earlier `albatross' had came in the 2000 Hero Honda Masters at the DLF Golf and County Club at Gurgaon and the 2002 Omega Hong Kong Open.

Interestingly, Kingston matched Cunning's stroke for stroke over six holes. Cunning finally moved ahead with a birdie on the 13th while Kingston parred the 15th. With Kingston failing to find birdies on the back-nine, Cunning got back to his birdie-finding act with four birdies on the last five holes. It was Cunning's back-nine 31, as against Kingston's 38, which ensured that it was far from a close finish.

Kingston had to be satisfied with a tied third-place with Groom. They both received $ 16,537.50 dollars each.

In fact there could have well been a tie for the second place only if Groom had birdied the final hole. But Groom could not match Gibson's effort on the 18th and left the latter with a second successive cheque of $ 33,090 in as many visits to the Capital.

Final scores: 1. Mike Cunning (US) (69, 69, 68, 64) 270; 2. Rick Gibson (Can) (65, 72, 69, 69) 275; 3. James Kingston (RSA) (69, 67, 71, 69) and Adam Groom (Aus) (67, 69, 69, 71) 276; 5. Zaw Moe (Myn) (63, 73, 70, 71) 277; 6. Arjun Atwal (Ind) (69, 72, 67, 70) and Jyoti Randhawa (Ind) (66, 71, 67, 70) 278; 8. Aung Win (Myn) (71, 68, 71, 68) and Mo Joong Kyung (Kor) (69, 71, 67, 70) 279; 10. Craig Kamps (RSA) (73, 69, 69, 69) and Digvijay Singh (Ind) (69, 73, 67, 71) 280.

Other Indians: Amritinder Singh (69, 74, 69, 69) 281; Yusuf Ali (70, 72, 71, 70) 283; Zai Kigpen (74, 67, 73, 70) and Shiv Prakash (70, 72, 73, 69) 284; Gaurav Ghei (72, 66, 73, 74), Pappan (71, 70, 71, 73) and Feroz Ali (71, 71, 74, 69) 285; S. S. P. Chaurasia (70, 72, 74, 70) 286; Arjun Singh (72, 72, 73, 70) 287; Mohammad Islam (72, 69, 72, 75), Harinder Singh (A) (70, 70, 76, 72), Naman Dawar (70, 74, 73, 71) 288; Shamim Khan (72, 72, 71, 74) 289; Sanjay Kumar (68, 72, 71, 80) 291; Mohammad Salim (70, 74, 74, 74) 292; Ranjit Singh (72, 71, 72, 72), Rahul Ganpathy (75, 68, 73, 77) and Uttam Singh Mundy (71, 71, 75, 76) 293.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

Athletics

• Kidane wins women's crown
  
  Cricket
  
• Plate-B secures five points
• Elite-B gets its calculations wrong; settles for a draw
• ECB to pay undisclosed compensation to Zimbabwe
• Ravindu Shah out of Sharjah Cup
  
  Football
  
• DPR Korea holds India
• Second straight win for SBT
  
  Golf
  
• Cunning far too good for his rivals
• Haas joins Harrington in lead
• Meunier-Lebouc leads as 13-year-old Wie dazzles
  
  Hockey
  
• Inspired play by IOC
  
  Tennis
  
• Serena's winning streak continues
• Isha beats back Iciri's challenge
  
  Boxing
  
• Jitender mauls Gurbinder; Qamar adjudged the best
  
  Karate
  
• Maharashtra is champion
  
  Volleyball
  
• Punjab Police's finest hour
  
  

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu