Battling Chirag stays in lead; Chikka rises to tied third

Chiragh Kumar huffed and puffed to an even-par 72 to manage a one-shot lead over Bangladesh’s Siddikur Rahman after the third round of the Panasonic Open India at Delhi Golf Club on Saturday.

Chiragh (67, 66, 72), an overnight leader by three shots, double-bogeyed the first hole but recovered with five birdies to finish on 11-under-par 205 and to stay in the hunt for a first Asian Tour victory at the US$400,000 event.

Siddikur, who has won once and has multiple top-10s at the Delhi Golf Club, birdied the last hole from four feet to stay in contention following a 68.  Bangaluru’s S Chikkarangappa and Zamal Hossain of Bangladesh scored 68 and 70 respectively to trail Chiragh by three shots at joint third position.

After a poor start, Chiragh found himself in trouble again on the 11th and 12th holes where he dropped strokes but rallied with birdie hat-trick on the 13th, 14th and 15th holes. A bad swing led Chiragh to miss the green on the 17th where he dropped another bogey.

“I’m not too unhappy with my result because the way I’ve been hitting the ball, it could have been worse,” said Chiragh.

It was a climb of five places for Chikkarangappa, whose flawless card till the 17th hole was spoiled with a bogey on the 18th.

“I’ll probably call Anirban (Lahiri), and get a few tips from him. He won his first Asian Tour event here at the Delhi Golf Club. I would like to follow in his footsteps,” said Chikkarangappa.

“I am really looking forward to a win here. I am just going to out there and think about every possible shot and try to stay in the moment.”

Leading scores (after 54 holes, Indians unless mentioned): 205: Chiragh Kumar (67, 66, 72); 206: Siddikur Rahman (Ban, 68, 70, 68); 208: S Chikkarangappa (69, 71, 68), Zamal Hossain (Ban, 71, 67, 70); 209: Thaworn Wiratchant (Tha, 68, 72, 69), Mithun Perera (SL, 66, 70, 73); 210: Shubhankar Sharma (70, 73, 67), Vikrant Chopra (71, 68, 71); 211: Rashid Khan (71, 71, 69), Sujjan Singh (71, 70, 70), Shankar Das (69, 71, 71); 212: Manav Jaini (72, 71, 69), Jyoti Randhawa (69, 72, 71).