A family holiday mood and a two-over final round did not stop Jyoti Randhawa from steam-rolling his way to victory at the Hero Honda Open South at the pristine Karnataka Golf Association in Bangalore on Friday.
Playing in his first event on the Amby Valley PGAI Tour since the Kashmir Open 2003, Jyoti did exactly what he did at the heavenly Royal Spring Golf Course in Srinagar two years ago, winning in fabulous fashion, by a massive six-shot margin and pocketing a handsome cheque of Rs 1,89,840. The ace golfer finished five-under par 283 for a satisfying finish.
The 2005 'Amby Valley Champion Golfer of the Year' and current order of merit leader Mukesh Kumar failed to make the final day charge fans were expecting of him and finished with a dismal two-over 74.
Finishing in second place to compliment his win last week at the Hyundai TNGF Open in Chennai, Mukesh earned Rs 1,30,440 for his efforts and continues to lead the Amby Valley PGAI Tour's order of merit for 2005-06, with total earnings of Rs 288,640 in two events.
Jyoti;s brother-in-law Digvijay finished third while local challenger C Muniyappa was tied for fourth place along with Matloob Rana of Pakistan. Vijay Kumar and Shamim Khan shared the sixth spot.
Jyoti went into the final round with a healthy six shot lead and must have surely had memories of his performance the last time he played here in 2002 where a similar six shot lead crumbled on the par-3 eighth where two tee shots ended up in the water, helping Vijay Kumar to a win, and being content with joint-second with Gaurav Ghei.
No such hick-ups this time round and a steady Jyoti consolidated with a final round 2-over that was enough to render him the title. With a lone birdie on the front nine on the par-5 fifth Jyoti made the turn in 35. With a string of pars on the back nine till the 16th Jyoti bogeyed the par-4 17th to put him back at 7-under. A wayward tee shot on the final hole put him in the woods on the right and Jyoti could just chip out onto the shot stuff still having an approach of 140 yards. A powerful third saw him over shooting the green and ending up in the deadly KGA rough. Jyoti followed it up with a brilliant flop shot that almost found the bottom of the cup and left him a uphill four-footer for bogey. Five putts from there would have ensured him the title but Jyoti took only two before the KGA caddies ran to retrieve the winner's ball from the hole as is the tradition here.
"Winning is always a good feeling and I went out there with a mindset to have fun and not to think too much about results. In the end it worked out well; coming back to the KGA after three years and winning is sweet.
"The course conditions were tough through the week after the heavy rains beating down on the turf before the tournament began on Tuesday, but the KGA staff have done a brilliant job to get the course back into championship condition. I will be playing more events in India than I have in the last three years and would really like to give back to the game here," said Jyoti, who will be on a week's break before heading for the highlands of Scotland for the Dunhill Links Championship at the Old Course where he finished sixth in October 2002.
On a whole it was a good week for the Randhawa family with brother Digvijay Singh coming in third place. Jyoti will be back on home grounds where he will tee it up at the Indian Open in the last week of October at the historic Delhi Golf Club, an event where he is a former winner.
Top scores (after 72 holes) (Pro): 283 Jyoti Randhawa (71, 69, 69, 74); 289 Mukesh Kumar (67, 76, 72, 74); 290 Digvijay Singh (74, 72, 72, 72); 291 C Muniyappa (73, 72, 73, 73), Matloob Rana (70, 73, 73, 75); 292 Vijay Kumar (75, 73, 73, 71), Shamim Khan (75, 70, 72, 75); 293 Ashok Kumar (73, 74, 73, 73); 295 S Madaiah (76, 73, 76, 70), Yusuf Ali (74, 78, 71, 72), Sandeep Syal (77, 74, 70, 74), Javed Inayat (70, 73, 76, 76); 296 Feroz Ali (75, 79, 72, 70), Amardip Malik (75, 72, 78, 71), Rahul Ganapathy (73, 78, 73, 72), DS Raghuvanshi (78, 72, 73, 73). Amateurs: 327 P Krishna (80, 82, 82, 83); 338 Riad Mahmood (85, 78, 89, 86).
