JOIN USAnura Rohana drove home the advantage in the final round at the Karnataka Golf Association on Sunday to register a comfortable three-shot victory in PGTI’s Bengaluru Open Golf Championship on Sunday.
The 45-year-old Sri Lankan struck a steady one-under 71 in the last round to end up with a total of 19-under-269 and thus record his sixth professional win and second win at the KGA.
Patna’s Aman Raj, who came up with the fourth round’s best score of six-under 66, took second place at 16-under-272.
Rohana (67-64-67-71), the third round leader by five shots, built on his massive advantage early in the day with a hat-trick of birdies on the third, fourth and fifth where he made conversions from a range of seven to 15 feet.
When Rohana capitalised on the par-5 11th with another birdie, he looked certain to seal the title as his lead stood at six shots. A couple of poor shots, one off the tee and the other an approach, resulted in a bogey and a double bogey for him on the 13th and 16th holes respectively.
However, the errors didn’t affect the final outcome of the tournament as Rohana still romped to victory by an impressive margin. Rohana, a Colombo-resident, took home the winning cheque worth Rs 9,69,900 which helped him climb from 21st place to 10th position in the 2018 PGTI Order of Merit.
"I just played my own game today and didn’t worry too much about the other contenders. I knew with an overnight five-shot lead, all I needed to do was put my head down and repeat what I had done over the last two days," said Rohana, who last won at the KGA in 2011.
“After being four-under through 11, I knew I had it in the bag and was quite relaxed on the course. The following bogey and double-bogey didn’t really affect me as none of my rivals really made a serious charge on the back-nine. My next aim now is to achieve my best ever rank on the PGTI Order of Merit. I was fourth last year. I want to finish higher than that this year."
Aman (68-67-71-66), a winner on the PGTI this year, carded a bogey-free 66 on day four to emerge runner-up. He finished three shots behind the winner.
Seventeen-year-old Aadil Bedi (69) of Chandigarh claimed third place, his best finish as a professional so far, at 15-under-273.
Last year’s champion Udayan Mane of Ahmedabad and Bengaluru’s C Muniyappa took a share of sixth place at 13-under-275.