Perched comfortably at the top with no real danger in sight at the start of the third round, the veteran Sri Lankan alternated between the ordinary and the brilliant, settling for a one-under 71 that gave him a total of nine-under 207 at the Karnataka Golf Association.
Mutiple Order of Merit winner Mukesh Kumar, who briefly threatened to eat into Rohana’s solid overnight lead of six shots, was beset by his now-familiar putting woes, carding a second successive 70 to lie second, five shots behind.
Pappan, another seasoned campaigner who has been part of the Indian Tour for more than a decade but hasn’t won a major title of note, mounted a surprise challenge with a 70 to climb to third position at 214 while R Srinivas (69), Raju Ali Mollah (71) and defending champion Ashok Kumar (72) were bunched together at fourth spot, a further shot behind.
Rohana, who had done little wrong in the opening two rounds, blew hot and cold in his third outing. While he appeared off colour in the early part of the day when playing partners Mukesh and Ashok pushed him hard, the Lankan hardly allowed the pressure to get the better of him. In fact, it appeared as if the 38-year-old seemed to love every bit of it, producing some sizzling shots that sent the crowd of followers into raptures.
After suffering a lip-out in the opening hole, Rohana picked up his first stroke of the day on the third hole. However, disaster struck him on the par-four sixth which he double bogeyed. After finding the water hazard with his tee shot, he landed on the slope of the bunker with his third attempt.
After chipping beyond the green, he two-putted from 40 feet to drop two strokes, and dropped another on the seventh, two-putting from four feet, to his own dismay and the crowd’s surprise. Showing nerves of steel and oblivious to the trail of horror, though, Rohana uncorked a magical run of four birdies -- from the eighth to the 111th -- to wrest back the initiative.
He fired in two five-footers before the turn, tapped in a two-inch birdie putt on the 10th and capped the trail of blaze with a three-foot putt on the 11th.
The day, however, ended on a sober note for Rohana as he bogeyed the closing 18th, though he still remained well in control.
Leading scores (after 54 holes, ‘A’ denotes amateur): 207: Anura Rohana (68, 68, 71); 212: Mukesh Kumar (72, 70, 70); 214: Pappan (73, 71, 70); 215: R Srinivas (71, 75, 69), Raju Ali Mollah (70, 74, 71), Ashok Kumar (74, 69, 72); 216: Harmeet Kahlon (73, 72, 71), Khalin Joshi (‘A’) (72, 73, 71), Feroz Ali Mollah (77, 68, 71), Rashid Khan (75, 69, 72), Abhishek Jha (72, 71, 73), Ajeetesh Sandhu (71, 72, 73); 217: S Chikkarangappa (‘A’) (76, 72, 69), Vijay Kumar (79, 69, 69), Sanjay Kumar (70, 76, 71), Mithun Perera (76, 69, 72), BG Lalith Kumara (73, 71, 73), CG Somaiah (‘A’) (76, 74, 67), Om Prakash Chouhan (73, 71, 73).
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