By IANS,
Gurgaon : With his title under serious threat, C. Muniyappa went all out to secure the BT Honda Pro-Am of Champions golf title at the Classic Golf Resort for the second year in a row here Sunday.
In the end, it required the reigning Indian Open champion to shoot a low number and he did just that by submitting a card of 11-under 61 to win the tournament by two strokes with a two-day total of 17-under 127.
Delhi Golf Club’s Ashok Kumar had to be content with a second-place finish despite a round of nine-under 63 that gave him a tournament total of 15-under 129. The experienced Mukesh Kumar finished one behind Ashok in third place while Anirban Lahiri shot up to fourth on the leaderboard with a round of ten-under 62 today.
Muniyappa had a total of 11 birdies in his round and kept the scorecard free of any bogeys. The round included a run of four straight birdies from the fourth to the seventh and another run of five back-to-back birdies from the 12th to the 16th hole.
Muniyappa said: “I knew after the round yesterday that the only shot I had at winning the title was to card a round of 11 or 12 under par. Having said that I didn’t expect to actually succeed at that task and I am happy to have managed that.”
With no tournament win after the Indian Open, Muniyappa confessed that there were various factors affecting his game.
“Before the Indian Open win, no one had any expectations from me but now whenever I play, I feel that people expect me to do well and that was affecting my performance. With this win, I think the confidence is back and that should help me in next week’s tournament,” he said.
Ali Sher guided his team of four, which included Chandar Uday Singh, Ajay Dadwal and Rahul Maroli, to a win in the team title. The former two-time winner of the Indian Open had a total of nine-under which helped the winning team to secure the highest overall total.
Leading Scores
127: C Muniyappa (66,61)
129: Ashok Kumar (66,63)
130: Mukesh Kumar (66,64)
131: Anirban Lahiri (69,62)
132: Siddikur Rahman (64,68)