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Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 15
India’s Rashid Khan notched up a joint runner-up finish to secure his Asian Tour card for the 2020 season, while city’s Aadil Bedi ended his campaign at fourth position at the inaugural Classic Golf & Country Club International Championship at Nuh (Haryana) today.
The 28-year-old Khan, who was looking for a third Asian Tour title at the US$300,000 Asian Tour and TATA Steel PGTI joint-sanctioned event at the Classic Golf & Country Club today, fired a 3-under 69 in the fourth and final round. He finished tied-2nd at 19-under 269, two shots behind champion Rory Hie of Indonesia. He climbed from 38th to 22nd in the Asian Tour money list as a result of his impressive finish.
Teenaged rookie Bedi came up with a fabulous 66 in Round 4, which featured birdies on the last five holes. The youngster posted his Asian Tour career-best finish, fourth place at 18-under 270. Rookie Aman Raj (66) and another city golfer, Abhijit Singh Chadha (71), were tied fifth at 16-under 272. Raj equalled his previous best result on the Asian Tour while Chadha claimed his career-best finish on the tour.
Khan (68-66-66-69), starting the day a shot behind Hie, made two birdies on the front-nine but then couldn’t push ahead on the back-nine where he added just two more birdies at the cost of a bogey. He couldn’t end his five-year title drought on the Asian Tour. However, he made significant gains on the tour’s merit list in order to seal his card for 2020. “It was a little up and down for me. I couldn't find the fairways on the front-nine and missed a lot of greens,” Khan said. “On the back-nine, things didn’t work out the way I wanted them to. I was there in the game when I made a birdie on the 14th and was just one shot back, but a wrong decision on the 15th, where I was a little confused on which club to use from the tee, put me in a really bad position. It was disappointing to make a bogey in the final stretch,” he added.
Bedi (67-68-69-66) was one-under through the front-nine but then signed off in a blaze of glory with birdies on the last five holes. The 18-year-old landed it close on four of the last five holes and sank a 15-footer on the 16th.
“I started well today being two-under through three holes, but then struggled a little bit with my drives and was not finding the fairways as regularly as I would’ve liked,” Bedi said. “However, I found something in my game on the 13th. From there on I was striking it well once again. The big positives from this week are that I have learnt a few things about my game. I just need to be more patient and need to know which pins to attack. The trip to the US this summer really helped me,” he added.
Raj was three-under for the day through 14 holes before he produced a birdie on the 15th followed by an eagle on the closing 18th. Chadha was three-under through 15 holes but two late bogeys saw him slip to one-under for the day.
Indians Veer Ahlawat and Karan Pratap Singh finished tied-13th at 12-under 276. Kshitij Naveed Kaul, Karandeep Kochhar, Shivendra Singh Sisodia and Viraj Madappa were tied-17th at 11-under-277, making it 10 Indians in the top-20
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