Ankita surges into lead

Golf Women's Pro meet

Unheralded Ankita Tiwana fired the best card of her professional career to muscle her way into surprise sole lead in the penultimate round of the Hero-KGA Women’s Pro Golf Championship here on Thursday.

The Gurgaon-based golfer, who trailed by four shots overnight, carded a sizzling three-under 69 in testing conditions to seize a one-stroke advantage (145) at the Karnataka Golf Association.

Overnight leaders Vani Kapoor and Shweta Galande struggled with their games and also faced some ill luck to slip to second and third respectively. While Vani stumbled to a 74 to lie one shot behind Ankita, the ambidextrous Shweta shot 75 but kept herself in contention. “I just played very confidently today,” said a delighted Ankita after shooting her first under-par score of her pro career. “I was very focused today and I did most things right. I just believed in myself and I guess the confidence paid off.”

After starting the day with a bogey, little did Ankita imagine that she could be running away with the day’s honours. While the rest of the field struggled to cope with the strong winds which gathered pace when the leadergroup made the turn, Ankita appeared unruffled. Striking the ball sweetly, the 21-year-old hardly went off track, notching up 16 regulations, and carried that confidence on to the quick greens too, sinking some superb long-rangers to draw applause.

She nailed her first birdie on the par-3 fourth after her tee shot landed the ball to just three feet from the cup and picked up her second shot of the day on the par-5 ninth, set up brilliantly by a fine approach shot. On the 13th, she sunk a 10-footer before reserving her best for the 16th. After going way left with her tee shot, she then drove brilliantly from 175 yards on to the green and then wrapped it up with a superb 40-footer birdie putt.

While Vani drove pretty accurately, she was erratic on the greens, missing a handful of birdie chances. On the other hand, Shweta was completely off colour with her hitting and with four lip-outs, luck too didn’t seem to be on her side.

Leading scores (after 36 holes): 145: Ankita Tiwana (76, 69); 146: Vani Kapoor (72, 74); 147: Shweta Galande (72, 75); 149: Saaniya Sharma (79, 70), Smriti Mehra (79, 70); 151: Neha Tripathi (78, 73); 156: Meghna Bal (81, 75); 158: Vandana Agarwal (83, 75).