Gaganjeet Bhullar saw it home with a hard-fought four-under-68 despite a bumpy ride on the final day of the Tata Steel Tour Championship on Sunday.
Bhullar, who totalled an outstanding 24-under-264 for the week, thus collected his 10th trophy on the PGTI and first in nine years on the tour.
The final round of the Rs 1.5 crore event was witness to an absorbing contest as Kapurthala’s Bhullar, Bengaluru-eans Chikkarangappa and Khalin Joshi, Calcutta’s SSP Chawrasia and Noida’s Amardeep Malik were all in the lead or joint lead at different stages.
Chikkarangappa ended the week as the runner-up after his fourth round of 68 moved his total to 22-under-266. Chikka’s second place finish lifted him from 11th to second position in the PGTI Order of Merit.
Khalin Joshi (69) finished third at 21-under-267, Calcutta’s Rahil Gangjee, who fired the day’s best score of 67, was tied at fourth place at 20-under-268 along with SSP Chawrasia (72). Amardeep Malik (73), the joint third round leader along with Bhullar and Chawrasia, closed the week in sixth place at 19-under-269.
The 32-year-old Gaganjeet Bhullar (69-63-64-68), a winner of 10 international titles with victories on both the European Tour and Asian Tour, brought all his experience into play by coming through despite dropping five shots (three bogeys and a double-bogey) in the final round.
Gaganjeet, who holds the Indian record of nine wins on the Asian Tour, consolidated his position at the top with a flurry of early birdies on the first, third and fourth holes thanks to his accurate iron and wedge shots. Bhullar’s troubles began on the fifth where he double-bogeyed after finding the hazard. He missed an up and down on the next hole to drop another shot.
Gaganjeet, a part of the Indian team that won the silver medal at the 2006 Doha Asian Games, pulled one stroke back with a 15-feet birdie conversion on the eighth before conceding another bogey on the 11th. The broad-built six-footer from Punjab then added two more birdies on the 12th and 13th before finding trouble once again on the 15th where he landed in the trees and as a result made bogey.
