Madappa seals top position

Viraj Madappa continued his fine run, carding a one under 71 to grab the top spot as the seeding exercise for the matchplay round of the Tata Steel 114th All India Amateur Golf Championship was completed at the KGA Course on Wednesday.

With a two-day total of four-under-par 140, the Kolkata lad will go into the brackets as the top seed.

Noida’s Samarth Dwivedi will be seeded second after a two-under par 140 followed by Harimohan Singh, a further three strokes behind. Gurgaon-based Kushal Singh (145) took the fourth spot on a countback. There was a thrilling five-way play-off for the final three places in the seeding list. Local lad Rahul Ravi and Md Wasil claimed two of those places with birdies on the first play-off hole, leaving Kurush Heerjee, B R Raja and P Mani to play further for the last remaining spot.

P Mani tied with Kurush after the second play-off hole while Raja dropped out. A third play-off hole (9th of the golf course) was required to settle the issue as Kurush edged out Mani. “I’ve been on the top of my game lately, the win last week at Eagleton has given me enough confidence to go out and do the job this week,” said Madappa.

In the International team event, India ‘C’, comprising of Samarth and Arjun, emerged winners with a gross score of 290 followed by India ‘B’ of Pratap Atwal and Aman Raj at 297.

The matchplay begins on Thursday. Defending champion Pratap Atwal will take on local lad Syed Saqib Ahmed in a round of 32 clash. Samarth will meet Rahul Ravi with the winner facing the winner of the contest between Udayan Mane and H S Kang.

Final Scores (stroke play): Individual: 140: Viraj Madappa (69,71); 142: Samarth Dwivedi (70,72); 145: Harimohan Singh (73,72), Kushal Singh (71,74), Yashas Chandra (70,75), Trishul Chinnappa (70,75); 146: Devin Suri (76,70), Aman Raj (71,75); 147: Syed Saqib Ahmed (76,71), Jaibir Singh (76,71), Yash Jindal (74,73); 148: Tarak Swamy (76,72), Feroz Singh Garewal (73,75), Arjun Sharma (72,76). International Team Event: 290: India ‘C’; 297: India ‘B’; 303: India ‘A’; 314: Sri Lanka.