GURUGRAM
30-year-old Udayan Mane of Pune shot rounds of 71-67-67-69 (14-under 274) to claim the PGTI’s inaugural Delhi-NCR Open at Golden Greens Golf Club in Gurugram to jump ahead in a tight race towards a spot in the Tokyo Olympics.
Mane’s win now moves him to World No. 275 from 320th earlier after earning five ranking points for his efforts. His 275th position puts him ahead of Kapurthala’s Gaganjeet Bhullar at 314th and Bengaluru’s Chikkarangappa at 317th. With PGTI having no other tournaments announced as of now and Bhullar with a busy European schedule ahead, a couple of top 10 finishes for Bhullar might eventually move him to the top spot in the race to Tokyo. It’s a challenge which will be interesting to watch.
The win was also an emotional one for Mane. He had recently lost his grandfather and dedicated the win to him.
Mane, answering about his mindset entering the final round with a lead, said, ”I thought I’ve done it before, I will do it again and it worked out pretty well. I knew exactly what to do and it was more pressure on my competition, who know pretty well the kind of tournaments I’ve won and from where I’ve won them.”
When asked about his best part of the game in the final round, Mane added, “I think I did everything well, greens are such that, everyone is missing putts and I didn’t let that bother me. I started off really well, was 2-under on the first three holes, that gave me a cushion and after that I made 14 continuous pars and finished with a birdie on the last. I kept the ball in play, played smart and made putts when I needed to.”
Top-10 players at the Delhi-NCR Open –
| Position | Player | Scores |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Udayan Mane | 71-67-67-69 (-14) |
| T-2 | Chikkarangappa S | 70-65-73-68 (-12) |
| T-2 | Shivendra Singh Sisodia | 71-71-68-66 (-12) |
| T-2 | Aman Raj | 72-66-69-69 (-12) |
| 5 | Karandeep Kochhar | 71-69-70-67 (-11) |
| 6 | Gaurav Pratap Singh | 70-68-68-72 (-10) |
| T-7 | Sanjeev Kumar (L) | 72-67-71-69 (-9) |
| T-7 | Kartik Sharma | 70-69-71-69 (-9) |
| T-9 | Khalin H Joshi | 73-65-71-71 (-8) |
| T-9 | Sandeep Singh | 73-70-72-65 (-8) |