Kolkata: Local girl Neha Tripathi carded an ever-par 72 in the final round to win the third leg of the Hero Women’s Professional Golf Tour at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club here on Friday. Pune’s Shweta Galande claimed the second position with a total score of 228 after the final round. The INR 6,00,000 event culminated today.

Overnight joint leader Neha Tripathi started impressively, carding three birdies on the 1st, 5th and 8th holes while dropping a single shot on the 9th in the front-nine. She added another birdie on the 10th hole and despite carding three bogeys on the 11th, 12th and 18th holes, she registered a comfortable three shot victory over Shweta Galande. Her tally of four birdies, maximum by any golfer on the day, helped her finish with a total score of 225. This is Neha’s first victory on the Tour after more than a year. Shweta Galande had a shaky start and carded two quick bogeys on the 1st and 3rd holes. She neutralised them with birdies on the 6th and 8th holes. However, a birdie-less back-nine with three bogeys on the 10th, 14th and 17th holes meant that she had to settle for the runner-up position with a score of 3 over 75 on the final day.

Chandigarh’s Saaniya Sharma and Amateur Tvesa Malik could not sustain their second round momentum and finished in tied third place with identical totals of 231. Both of them had carded 1 over 73 in the second round. Saaniya Sharma’s round of 5 over 77 included two birdies on the 6th and 12th holes. She also carded five bogeys on the 2nd, 3rd, 14th, 15th and 16th holes along with a double on the 8th. Tvesa Malik played a birdie-less round with four bogeys on the 5th, 6th, 7th and 10th holes along with a double on the 8th to finish with a score 6 over 78 in the final round.

Hero Motocorp sponsored Bengaluru golfer Sharmila Nicollet registered a score of 6 over 78 on the second straight day to take the fifth spot. She played a birdie-less round with six bogeys on the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 12th and 18th holes to finish with a total score of 232 after 54 holes. Kolkata’s Smriti Mehra, Kapurthala’s Gursimar Badwal and Jaipur’s Afshan Fatima finished tied sixth with a total score of 234, followed by Delhi’s Ankita Tiwana and Mehar Atwal in ninth and 10th position respectively.

The Tour now moves to the picturesque Tollygunge Club, Kolkata for the fourth leg to be played from 9th to 12th February.