21-year-old, Karandeep Kochhar from Chandigarh, won his second professional title, Chandigarh Golf Club on Nov. 12th at the PGTI’s Players Championship. Karandeep shot rounds of 66-68-67-69 to win by two-strokes at 18-under-270.
Talking about his win, Kochhar said, “Well finally relieved to get the job done! The confidence from last week carried onto this week, and it helped that I had played the leader group last week as well. But what made the difference yesterday was that I was in control of my nerves down the stretch, didn’t panic when I got to know that Sunit had posted -16, and I was -16 with 3 to play. So proud of the way I handled myself all day, especially the last 3 holes! And looking forward to finishing the year strong with two big events coming up, especially the Jeev Milkha Singh invitational at home.”
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Last week, at PGTI’s Players Championship, presented by Panchkula Golf Club, Kochhar finished runner-up with 19-under-269 (68-65-69-67), five-shots behind Akshay Sharma, thereby recording an incredible 37 under par for the last 8 tournament rounds.
Young Kochhar pocketed ₹ 4,84,950 for his efforts to climb from seventh to the second spot with total earnings of ₹ 9,25,930 on PGTI’s Order of Merit. Pune-based Udayan Mane continues to lead the merit list.
Previously, Kocchar won his maiden professional title while still an amateur (only amateur till date to do so) at age 17 at Tollygunge Golf Club, Kolkata in 2016.
26-year-old Sunit Chowrasia of Kolkata, nephew of Indian golfing great SSP Chawrasia, broke the course record with a sensational final round 10-under-62 to secure the runner-up spot in Chandigarh at 16-under-272 (69-69-72-62). Sunit turned professional in 2018, posted his career-best finish, improving from his previous best – a fifth-place finish at the Kensville Open, Ahmedabad in December 2019. His performance at the Chandigarh Golf Club added ₹ 3,34,950 to Sunit’s earnings and moved him to the seventh spot on the 2020 Order of Merit.
Notable, players in the field included – Akshay Sharma who finished third with scores of 69-68-68-69 (-14); Asian Tour winners, Viraj Madappa of Bangalore, who finished tied-10th at 9-under par and, Khalin Joshi of Bangalore finished tied-16th at 7-under par. , Ajeetesh Sandhu playing at his home course shot rounds of 72-70-69-75 who finished tied-26th at 2-under par and currently the highest-ranked Indian in the world rankings, Rashid Khan of Delhi finished tied-29th with scores of 68-73-72-75 for an even-par total.
The next event on the PGTI schedule is the ₹1.5 Crore Jeev Milkha Singh Invitational presented by TAKE in Chandigarh from December 3rd-6th, where Ajeetesh Sandhu will try to defend his title against the in-form youngsters.