Lavery Kumar's overnight seven stroke cushion held her in good stead as she clinched the Open title on Friday, in the Gold division of the Madras Ladies Golf Championship.
CHENNAI: Delhi golfer Lavery Kumar's overnight seven stroke cushion held her in good stead as she clinched the Open title on Friday, in the Gold division of the Madras Ladies Golf Championship, the season's opener of the Indian Gold Union.
Lavery, who also got the prize for best round in four days with 73 yesterday, tallied 302 from four rounds. Shruti Khanna, also of Delhi, finished runners-up with 310, followed by Sherya Ghei (Delhi) 313 for third prize.
Despite being one of the youngest in the circuit in India, Lavery Kumar, who won her maiden title in the Noida Open last year, represented India in tournaments last year in Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore, besides finishing fourth in the British Open Junior, kept her fingers crossed on her future.
"I am delighted to win the season's opener, though I played badly on the back nine today after being the tournament leader for earlier three rounds. I intend playing in all the tournaments in the circuit this year and continue to improve upon my points on order of merit of the IGU," she said.
"It was a great feeling playing alongside seasoned and experienced players like Shruti Khanna," she said, adding that she took things rather easy in the last four or five holes and ended up with a card of eight over 78 today.
Lavery Kumar's bad show today helped statemate Akriti Singh win the Nett division with a tally of 279. Lavery aggregated 286 for four rounds in this category.
It was an interesting battle for honours in the Silver divison, with the top two in line for the title going neck to neck. But local challenger Pemalatha, who led the field in the Silver division, grabbed the title with a total of 351, two strokes ahead from second placed Arya Tikenekar of Pune.
Premalatha had a six stroke lead to Arya but the Pune golfer tightened her grip on her game in the homeward and reduced the margin.
In the Nett category of Silver Division, Chennai's Lakshmi finished first with 286 and Arya Tikenkar (289), who was adjudged for the Stable Ford prize with 42 points, was runners up. The best putt prize over the three rounds went to Uma Hataria (87 pts) of Chennai.
Results (after 72 holes): Gold division-Open: 302-Lavery Kumar (Del-75-76-73-78), 310-Shruti Khanna (Del-77-79-76-78) and 313-Sherya Ghei (Del-79-78-77-79) and Nett: 279-Akriti Singh (Del) and 286-Lavery Kumar. Silver-division-Open: 351 Premalatha (che-87-86-92-86) and 353-Arya Tikenkar (Pune-86-91-94-82) and Nett: S Lakshmi (che) and 289-Arya Tikenkar.
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