Mumbai: Bangalore’s S. Chikkarangappa showed scintillating performance to break a course record of Professional Gurbaz Man who shot 7-under in PGTI event in May, 2010 at the renovated Bombay Presidency Golf Club, Mumbai. Chikka shot 8-under for the total of 15-under 195 to top the leader board on day three of LIC Western India Amateur Golf Championship.

Compatriot Khalin Joshi also had a brilliant round of 5-under for the total of 8-under 202. The winner of Maharashtra Open, Udayan Mane posted 4-under for the total of 4-under 206 that was matched by Chandigarh’s Angad Cheema for third and fourth place respectively.

Ambala’s Manav Das was three shots further back after carding level par score for the total of 209 at fifth position while leader of the day one, Aditya Bhandarkar slipped to sixth place with the score of 210.

Chikka was delighted to bounce back into his real form after struggling to hit top form in the last week’s Maharashtra Open. He played a bogey free round, and

Said, “I played the solid game today. I fired four birdies in the front and back nine each, which brought back my confidence. Though, I played one or two bad shots when my ball went right or left but I don’t think that my round could be better than this. If I keep playing like this, I might just get deeper tomorrow.”

Joshi who usually loose his temper after playing a disappointed hole seemed steady. He said, “I played fairly good game today. Sometimes, my anger helps me like yesterday when I got to know about two shot penalty on 14th tee, I sank four birdies on 14th, 15th, 16th and 18th but I still need to work on it to improve my game as well as to become a better player.”

Mane, 21, scorched the front nine today as he hit birdies on 1st, 4th, 5th, 7th, 16th and 17th. He said, “My back nine just let me down today. I just got ahead of myself on 10th tee and dropped two shots on 10th and 11th and then on 15th. I also got the metal block after that but tried to control myself. Honestly, I don’t think I will be able to close a huge gap between me and Chikka but I will definitely finish in top-three.”