Sport - Golf

Randhawa in the title-hunt

— Photo: S. Subramanium

TIME TO SMILE: Taichiro Kiyota of Japan (left) is a happy person after he nosed ahead with a ‘miracle’ birdie on the final hole while Jyoti Randhawa looks on.

GURGAON: A shot off the lead, Jyoti Randhawa finds himself in just the right position to make the final charge on Sunday. Two birdies and as many saved-pars on the last four holes kept Randhawa in the title-hunt in the $2.57 million Johnnie Walker Classic Golf after Shiv Kapur slipped from the top of the leaderboard and Osaka-based Taichiro Kiyota replaced New Zealand’s Mark Brown as the latest leader at the DLF Golf and Country Club here.

Kiyota, who shot a five-under 67 after Brown brought in a 64, nosed ahead with a ‘miracle’ birdie on the final hole. Interestingly, both Kiyota and Randhawa hit wild approach shots on this hole to be awkwardly placed. Allowed a free ‘drop’ each, Randhawa managed to save par and Kiyota pitched the ball on the green with just the right amount of back-spin and birdied from under five feet for the lead.

Randhawa’s 68 and his shared second spot with Brown was the biggest consolation for the Indians after they were rudely jolted by the shocking disqualification of Gaurav Ghei after the Delhi pro had fired a 65 to come into the reckoning.

Soon after Ghei’s name appeared on the leaderboard, European Tour’s Chief Referee John Paramor addressed mediapersons to announce the disqualification.

Explaining the ruling, Paramor said, “I received a text message (around 6 a.m.) from one of my colleagues who had been watching the golf coverage the previous evening. They noted on the coverage that Ghei’s ball moved on the 18th hole (on Friday) as a result of him putting his club behind the ball to assess the lie having taken relief from the cart-path. Unfortunately, no one in the immediate area saw the ball move, but clearly on reviewing the TV pictures, this happened.

“If it had been noted before he played his next stroke, he could have corrected the error and saved himself a further penalty. He failed to replace it so that would have meant a total penalty of two that was not added to his second-round score (of 72). He signed for a score lower than was actually taken and is disqualified from the second round.” Reacting to the ruling, Ghei said, “It’s deeply disappointing and it’s a shame that all the people around and the referee did not spot the incident.”

From this point in time, there was understandable gloom among the Indian fans. The focus returned to the on-course action when Kapur birdied the sixth hole to open up a one-shot lead at 12-under, minutes after co-leader Brown dropped a shot on the 16th hole. Thereafter, Kapur bogeyed four times over the next seven holes to let Randhawa hog all the attention.

Later Kapur managed to birdie three times against a lone bogey on the last five holes to climb to joint seventh spot.

Meanwhile, Randhawa played steady golf for a 34 on either side of the turn. The only blemish on Randhawa’s card came on the par-4 fourth hole that brought him back to par for the day. On the remaining holes, Randhawa birdied four times to keep alive hopes of an Indian winner on Sunday.

“Something I learnt today,” said a chastened Randhawa and continued, “You have to really be focused on the shot and not before or after. So let’s see if I can take it up tomorrow.”

The scores (Indians unless stated): Taichiro Kiyota (Jpn) (68, 67, 67) 202; Jyoti Randhawa (70, 65, 68), Mark Brown (Nzl) (71, 68, 64) 203; Graeme Storm (Eng) (70, 66, 69), Phillip Archer (Eng) (72, 64, 69), Greg Chalmers (Aus) (68, 69, 68) 205; Scott Strange (Aus) (71, 67, 68), Shiv Kapur (69, 65, 72), Daniel Vancsik (Arg) (67, 71, 68) 206; Raphael Jacquelin (Fra) (72, 68, 67) and Vijay Singh (Fij) (70, 68, 69) 207.

Other Indians: Jeev Milkha Singh (68, 70, 70), Arjun Atwal (69, 72, 67) 208; Rahil Gangjee (68, 71, 70), Mukesh Kumar (73, 69, 67) 209; Arjun Singh (69, 70, 73) 212; Digvijay Singh (70, 70, 73) 213; Gaganjeet Bhullar (72, 69, 73) 214; Rahul Ganapathy (73 69, 74) 216; Gaurav Ghei (70, 72, 65) disqualified.

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