JOIN USConsistent Abhishek in line for first win
Abhishek Jha was consistency personified as he set himself a wonderful platform to break his professional title duck at the Take Solutions Indian Masters here on Friday.
Playing, perhaps, the best golf of his career, the 27-year-old upped the ante in brilliant fashion, carding a superb third-round seven-under 65 to barge into a whopping six-shot lead at his home Eagleton Golf Resort.
Jha’s training partner and friend S Chikkarangappa struggled to a three-under 69 to share the second spot at 203 with Karnataka Golf Association’s R Murthy, who rose through the leaderboard with a spectacular eight-under 64.
Having missed the cut in the Eagleburg Masters held at the very same course in early October, Jha arrived into this tournament with a new-found determination on doing well and the lanky 6’5’’ youngster has backed that ambition with some superb golf.
Just like he has done over the last two rounds, the towering but affable Jha continued to reveal a new facet of his game that his friends at Eagleton had been waiting to see for a long time. Following a slow start to the round, he began to warm up nicely, striking the ball dead-straight like a machine and holing almost all his putts as the following crowd lapped it up generously.
After parring the opening six holes, he nailed his first birdie on the seventh hole, sinking a six-footer before going two-under for the day with a 10-foot birdie on the ninth.
Having gained his confidence, he then started to drive home the advantage as his playing partners -- Nils Floren (74) and Chikkarangappa -- started to struggle with their hitting.
On the par-5 10th he sunk a sensational 40-foot eagle, curling the beautifully from right to left as loud cheers rang out. He followed that up with a six-foot birdie on the very next hole as he stretched his lead to five shots. His momentum took a bit of a dip on the 12th as he bogeyed for the first time in 38 holes but he soon negated that with another scorching 40-foot eagle on the par-5 15th.
Jha almost nailed his third eagle on the par-4 17th when he reached the green with his tee shot but the ball just rolled past the pin. He converted that into a birdie and then parred the final hole to stay well ahead of the pack.
Although Chikkarangappa shot a respectable 69, he didn’t necessarily enjoy the best of rounds, often forced to save pars as his hitting let him down. A tenacious fighter, the 21-year-old somehow managed to scramble himself out of trouble, sinking four birdies against a lone bogey to stay in the hunt but having a lot of catch-up to do on the final day. Murthy, following a sedate opening nine where he sunk two birdies, closed out in spectacular fashion. He picked up a shot on the 10th and then hammered five straight birdies from the 14th to ensure an all-Bangalore leadergroup for the final round.
Leading scores (after 54 holes, Indians unless mentioned): 197: Abhishek Jha (66, 66, 65); 203: R Murthy (71, 68, 64), S Chikkarangappa (64, 70, 69); 207: M Dharma (67, 71, 69), Niall Turner (Irl, 67, 70, 70), Deepinder Singh Khullar (67, 69, 71), Khalin Joshi (67, 69, 71), Nils Floren (Swe, 71, 62, 74); 208: N Thangaraja (Sri, 69, 72, 67), Pijit Petchkasem (65, 73, 70).