Chennai, Aug 26 (Golf News) Indian golfer Manu Gandas registered a convincing four-shot victory with a dazzling final day score of five-under 67 at the Chennai Open here on Friday.
The Haryana golfer beat Sri Lanka's N Thangaraja (66-67-67-72), who took the second place at 16-under 272 following his final round effort of 72.
The 26-year-old Gandas (68-65-68-67), lying overnight second, one shot off the lead, began the final day in an ideal fashion with a chip-in birdie on the first hole.
He then cut out errors and kept himself in play to make pars all the way till the eighth.
He soon added his second birdie on the ninth where he rolled in a 10-footer after a poor chip.
On the back-nine, Gandas missed some up and downs but managed to extend his lead with some excellent putting, making birdie conversions from a range of 20 to 30 feet on the 13th and 16th holes.
Gandas finally found the par-5 18th green in two and two-putted for a closing birdie to capture his third title of the year.
"The most important things for me over the last one year have been identifying my shortcomings and the consistency with which I've followed my processes. Importantly, I took a month off from the game during the mid-season break to fully recover from my injuries and that really helped at the end," Gandas said.
"My driving and tee shots were the best aspect of my game this week. Today my wedge shots were not great but they kept me in play.
"I did well with the longer putts in the final round. I didn't look at the leaderboard on day four but instead just focused on my target which was a total of 20-under. I finally managed to achieve it," he added.
Gandas totalled 20-under 268 for the week and further consolidated himself in third position on the PGTI Order of Merit.
Bengaluru's Khalin Joshi (68) and Chandigarh's Abhijit Singh Chadha (71) finished tied third at 15-under 273 while Karandeep Kochhar (70), another Chandigarh-based pro, finished a further shot back to take fifth place.
Chennai-based golfers Sandeep Syal and S Prasanth, finished tied 49th at five-over 293 and tied 52nd at seven-over 295 respectively.
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News Source : PTi
