Chennai Open: Manu marches to victory

CHENNAI: Manu Gandas marched to a convincing four-shot victory with a dazzling final day performance of five-under 67 in the Chennai Open 2022 at the TNGF Golf Course on Friday.

Manu totalled 20-under 268 for the week to lift his fourth PGTI trophy and become richer by Rs. 6 lakh. Sri Lanka’s N Thangaraja took second place at 16-under 272 following his final round effort of 72. Manu (68-65-68-67), lying overnight second, began the final day in ideal fashion with a chip-in birdie on the first hole.

The 26-year-old Manu then cut out the errors and kept himself in play to make pars all the way till the eighth. He added his second birdie on the ninth, where he rolled in a 10-footer after a poor chip. On the back-nine, Manu missed some ups and downs but managed to extend his lead with some excellent putting, making birdie conversions from a range of 20 to 30 feet on the 13th and 16th holes.

Manu finally found the par-5 18th green in two and two-putted for a closing birdie to capture his third title of the year. “The most important thing for me over the last one year has been identifying my shortcomings and the consistency with which I have followed my processes. Importantly, I took a month off from the game during the mid-season break to fully recover from my injuries. That really helped at the end,” said Manu.

“My driving and tee shots were the best aspects of my game. Today (on Friday), my wedge shots were not great but they kept me in play. I did well with the longer putts in the final round. I did not look at the leaderboard on day four but instead focused on my target, which was a total of 20-under. I finally managed to achieve it,” added Manu.

Thangaraja (66-67-67-72), the overnight leader by one shot, made a poor start with three bogeys on the front-nine. But, he roared back with three birdies on the back-nine to clinch the runner-up prize. Khalin Joshi (68) and Abhijit Singh Chadha (71) took tied-third at 15-under 273 while Karandeep Kochhar (70) finished a further shot back to take fifth place.

The Chennai-based professionals Sandeep Syal and S Prasanth finished tied-49th at five-over 293 and tied 52nd at seven-over 295 respectively.