At least this time there was no heartbreaking play-off. Gaganjeet Bhullar made another last-day charge to end second at an Asian Tour tournament, but unlike in Brunei, this week's Macau Open was being run his own way by another player. Thai senior Thaworn Wiratchant's five-shot lead starting out the last day threatened to be spectacularly similar to that of another player sharing his initials, just playing on the other side of the world.
Wiratchant finally won by six shots, but Gagan's five-under 66 pushed him up from his overnight tied seventh. Having not started off on a very bright note -- Gagan just managed an even-par round on the opening day -- it is terrific that the youngster is making a habit of finishing well.
He's going to be playing at home finally this week, at the DLF Masters, as the domestic tour finally plays its first real big tournament of the year. Jyoti and Shiv are supposed to be there too, so this week should be a fun one.
Talking of the domestic tour, last week's Players' Championship at Chandigarh had a curiousity worth talking about. With rain pelting down almost each day, most of the play was washed out because of 'unplayable conditions', we were told. So, in addition to being forced to cut down the number of rounds to just two, the organisers also took one hole -- the water-logged 5th -- out of play. So the end of Amandeep Johl's long title wait came in a tournament played over 34 holes!
We tried to dig into precendents of such a big cut, and the one interesting one we found was the Surya Nepal Masters of 2002, a tournament that was part of the regular Indian circuit back then. It seems that foggy conditions had forced the last round to be played just over 14 holes, an effective par 55!
Mukesh Kumar had finished second behind US Mundy there and he recalled the day to us. "The players were really keen on the tournament not going into the next day as we had to catch a flight to Kolkata for a tournament in the next week. The next flight out was a couple of days later, and so, it was decided to reduce the number of holes," Mukesh said.
According to PGTI -- the current domestic tour -- chief tournament referee Sampath Chari, both the sponsors and players are keen to finish off in time, and so such a step is taken.
Mukesh, though, feels that it could sometimes turn out to be slightly unfair. "It has to be done, since the main idea is to finish the tournament, but playing over just a few holes is often not an accurate measure," he said.
Well, Mukesh had finished joint runner-up in Kathmandu, though he just managed a tied eighth in Chandigarh.
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