Mukesh wins Airtel Open

Mukesh Kumar played a rock solid round of par to capture the inaugural Airtel Open Golf title, his fourth win on the Amby Valley PGAI Tour 2004-05 season, at the Bombay Presidency Golf Club course in Mumbai on Friday.

Overnight leaders and Chandigarh lads Harinder Gupta and Ranjit Singh, crumbled with rounds of six over and four over respectively to hand the title and Rs 1,62,000 winner's cheque on a platter to Mukesh. Three groups behind the leaders Arjun Singh almost pulled off another spectacular comeback. The Delhi pro shot a scintillating six-under sixty-four to jump into joint second spot with Kolkata's Feroz Ali.

Arjun and Feroz split the second and third place earnings to take home Rs 87,500 each. Starting his final round at 2-over par and ten shots of the lead, Arjun dropped a shot on the par-3 second. With consecutive birdies on the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th; Arjun reached the turn at three-under and was standing on the par-3 tenth on a confidence high.

He went onto birdie the tenth and eleventh holes before dropping his second shot on the par-4 twelfth. The lanky golfer dropped another shot on the fifteenth before repairing the damage with a birdie on the easy par-5 sixteenth. The icing on the cake came on the final hole as Arjun was safely on the green in two leaving himself a 12-feet uphill putt for an eagle. Taking absolutely no time over the putt, stand and deliver it was as the ball was heading nowhere but the centre of the cup. The eagle three saw Arjun match his front nine and a four round tally of 4-under 276.

Halfway leader Feroz Ali had it all in his game today to render the rest of the field helpless. Feroz started the day at three under par and after he completed his front nine in one under, Feroz was looking set to mount the challenge and showed glimpses of the form that saw him won the Indian Open in 1998. But it was not to be as Feroz could only manage pars on the first six holes on the back nine.

Aiming for the eighteenth fairway on the easy par-5 16th, Feroz pulled his tee shot onto the first fairway but the length and angle left him with just a seven iron and a clear line to the green. Feroz left his second short of the green on the left and a careless chip saw Feroz send his ball all the way through the green into the right hand side bunker. The mistake cost him dear and saw him bogey where he must have given himself the birdie before the chip. The Indian Airlines-sponsored pro birdied the last hole and came in tied second for the Open.

With a sparkling seven under yesterday that saw him lead by two shots after round three, all eyes were on Harinder Gupta to see him win his first title as a professional on the Amby Valley PGAI Tour.

The 22-year-old looked pretty solid as he managed the turn even par without affecting his score. With back to back bogeys on the 12th and 13th Harinder saw himself reach the par-5 sixteenth at six under for the tournament holding onto a one shot lead over playing partner Mukesh Kumar.

A sliced tee shot saw Harinder's ball head out of bounds and his chances for the title fade away. He could finally manage a triple bogey eight on the hole and when Mukesh made birdie a four shot swing was inevitable.

With a final drop shot on the 17th, a disgusted Harinder stormed in and out of the club house turning in a dismal card of six-over 76 and a four round aggregate of two-under 278 for tied fourth position with home club-mate Ranjit Singh.

"All I had to do was aim for a par which is difficult to come by in this course. And one bad shot from Harinder was all that set up the victory for me", said the Mhow-based pro.

With this victory Mukesh extended his lead on the money chart for this season on the Amby Valley PGAI Tour. He is sitting comfortably with total earnings of Rs 13,40,600 in 13 starts and a margin of Rs 3,10,666 over Ashok Kumar, who has been out of sorts lately.

Meanwhile, Mehul Rastogi bagged the amateur title with a total of 317.

Top scores (after 72 holes) (Pro):
275-Mukesh Kumar (70,69,66,70); 276-Arjun Singh (69,71,72,64), Feroz Ali (67,68,72,69); 278- Ranjit Singh (67,71,66,74), Harinder Gupta (70,69,63,76); 279-US Mundy (71,68,68,72); 280-Vijay Kumar (69,72,70,69); 283-Shiv Prakash (70,76,69,68), Shankar Das (70,71,72,70), Yusuf Ali (71,70,71,71).