Manila, Feb 7 (PTI) India’s Karandeep Kochhar roared back in the third round with a course record to take the third-round lead in the Philippine Golf Championship here on Saturday.
Kochhar, who recently won in Egypt and his own country at the IGPL Tour, celebrated his return to the Asian Tour with a bogey free 65 that had seven birdies. With rounds of 74-69-65 he is now 8-under and leader by two.
Breaking par on the East Course – respected for being one of the most challenging courses in the region – is an outstanding achievement.
“The way this course has been playing for the past two days and today, with a little bit of rain, which was there for maybe seven, eight holes, I would say I think it was probably one of my finest performances,” Kochhar said.
“Because it’s not easy out there to score, the greens are tiny, they can get quick if you’re on the wrong side of the hole. I just played really well tee to green, that’s been the mantra this week, just try to hit as many greens as possible,” he added.
Four players, South African Ian Snyman (70), Travis Smyth (71) from Australia, Thailand’s Sarut Vongchaisit (71) and Korea’s Wooyoung Cho (71), share second place and are two strokes behind.
The next best Indian after Kochhar was rookie Shubham Jaglan (77-70-69) with five birdies against two bogeys was T-17.
Ajeetesh Sandhu (72-75-74) had a rare quintuple bogey of five-over on a single hole but still made the cut at 5-over total and was T-61.
Shaurya Bhattacharya shot 77 but made the cut at 6-over and was T-63rd.
Kochhar made six birdies –four in the first six, back-to-back ones on 11 and 12 and the final one, that allowed him to break the previous course record by one, on the legendary par-three 17th.
About the penultimate hole, he explained: “I was adjusting between clubs today, between an eight and seven, because I think because of the weather, the way it was, it was a little bit humid, the ball wasn’t flying as far. So, my caddie and I just decided on the seven iron, like a chippy seven iron there.
“My iron play has been very good this week, and then I hit a good putt. I hit a good shot to whatever, like six, eight, feet or whatever, and then just trusted the line, trusted the pace. Which is what I did pretty much the whole day, tried not to get ahead of myself.” PTI COR APA APA APA
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