Kolkata: Raghu Bir Choudhary shot a brilliant 5-over par 77 to outshine the favourites and claim the honours in the Royal Juniors Open, the fourth leg of the Tata Steel IGU East Zone Junior Tour which culminated at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club here on Thursday. Raghu who had opened with a 85 finished with a tournament total of 162.
Tournament favourites Gurkirat Singh and Sunit Chowrasia finished second and fourth with totals of 163 and 165 respectively. Overnight joint-leaders Raj Ali and Viraj Khanna ended up third and fifth respectively.
Gurkirat however annexed the title in Category B with a two-round total of 163 while Raj ali was second at 164. Bishwam Ghosh was third at 176 while Udayjit was fourth at 177. It was Bibek Sardar who won the Category C honours with a 36-hole total of 170 while Hashan Rahman finished second at 172 along with Devansh Chadha.
Sandeep yadav emerged champion in the D Category with a total of 170 while Rajib Ali came second at 185. Aryaman Chakravarty won the Category E title with a total of 113 while Khushboo Sinha was the winner in the Girls category.
Raghu Bir, a class XI student of La Martiniare began with a flourish making a hattrick of pars and added two more on the fifth and seventh while losing a stroke on the other holes to take the turn at 4-over. He once again hit a purple patch making six pars and a birdie. A bogey on the opening and closing hole were the only two blemishes of his back nine.
“I am happy to win my maiden title on the IGU Tour,” said an elated Raghu Bir. ‘I was not great off the tee but my short game came to my rescue as I made a lot of up and downs,” added the champion who received the trophy from K Mohan Chandran, GM Taj Bengal.
Top scores after 36 holes
Category A & B
162 Raghu Bir Choudhary (Cat A) (85, 77); 163 Gurkirat Singh (Cat B) (82, 81); 164 Raj Ali (Cat B) (79, 85); 165 Sunit Chowrasia (Cat A) (81, 84); 167Viraj Khanna (CAT A) (79, 88); 173 Sumant Lenka (Cat A) (86, 87); 174Vishesh Khanna (Cat A) (87, 87); 176 Bishwam Ghosh (Cat B) (84, 92); 177Udayjit Bhalotia (Cat B) (84, 93); 179 Parwez Khan (Cat A) (90, 89); 179Tanishq Julka (Cat B) (96, 83)
Categpry B
163 Gurkirat Singh (82, 81); 164 Raj Ali (79, 85); 176 Bishwam Ghosh (84, 92); 177 Udayjit Bhalotia (84, 93); 179 Tanishq Julka (96, 83); 180 Nishkarsh Sachdeva (88, 92); 180 Yashvardhan Sarda (88, 92); 180 (Aman Singhal) (89, 91); 180 Sharif Khan (93, 87)
Category C
170 Bibek Sardar (89, 81); 172 Hashan Rahman (85, 87); 172 Devansh Chadha (85, 87); 184 Manish Rajak (93, 91); 199 Vir Singh Lamba (104, 95);200 Kartik Lohumi (103, 97)
Category D
170 Sandeep Yadav (81, 89); 185 Rajib Ali (94, 91); 193 Abhikanks Basu (100, 93); 224 Yash Agarwal (117, 107); 232 Aroush Tagore (118, 114)
Category E (18 holes)
113 Aryaman Chakravarty (56, 57); 118 Sneha Singh (60, 58); 122 Rakshik Basu (63, 59); 127 Arav Shanghavi (61, 66)
Girls
176 Khushboo Sinha (92, 84)
Indian Sports News Network
