Chandigarh: Honey Baisoya, who has been in fine form this year and local Chandigarh lad Raghav Bhandari, topped in the strokeplay section of the All India Amateur Golf Championship at Chandigarh Golf Club which came to an end on Wednesday.
Bhandari with rounds of 73 and 70 and Delhi golfer Baisoya with 71 and 72 totalled 143, while Udayan Mane shot 73 and 71 to tie for third with the talented KHalin Hoshi of Bangalore. Joshi shot 73 and 71 as the top 32 qualifiers moved into the Matchplay segment, which will decide the All India Amataeur champion at the 111th edition of the championships.
Two-time defending champion S Chikkarangappa, who is gunning for the first-ever hat-trick of All India Amateur championship title in more than 80 year – the last was achieved by E J Watts in 1930 – was tied 10th in strokeplay, alongside England’s Jack Colegate. Chikka shot 74 and 74 while Colegate had 75 and 73.
On the opening day Karan Taunk of Jamshedpur carded one-under 70 to take one shot the lead in the opening round of stroke play, but he slipped to tied 10th after a second round of 78.
In the international team championship played concurrently, India B with Honey Baisoya (71-72) and Angad Cheema (72-75) topped the list at 290 while India A with Chikka (73-74) and Khalon Joshi (73-71) were second at 292. One shot behind at 293 was the English pair Colegate (75-73) and Curtis Griffiths (75-70). Sri Lanka (296) finished fourth and Bangladesh (302) was fifth.
In the opening round of the Matchplay Chikka will however have a tough opponent in Sidharth Semwal, who was 22nd with rounds of 83 and 74. Baisoya is drawn to meet Sandeep Sandhu and Bhandari will meet Arshad Ali.
Khalin Joshi who was tied third will take on Jasjeet Singh and Udayan Mane will meet Shubhankar Sharma. An interesting clash will be the one between Trishul Chinappa and Colegate.
One of the oldest amateur championships in the world, the All India Amateur Championship started in 1892 and is run by the Indian Golf Union. It has a 36-hole stroke play qualifying competition over the first two days from which the leading 32 players proceed to the match play knockout event.
