Hero Women’s Pro Golf Tour: A four-shot lead for Ridhima Dilawari

Ridhima Dilawari cards a one-under 71 to get to seven-under 127, the lowest two-round aggregate this season.

File Photo: Ridhima Dilawari (right) has already registered a victory this season.

Ridhima Dilawari ensured two under-par rounds in a row to ensure a four-shot lead at the Hero Women’s Pro Golf Tour (sixth leg) here on Thursday.

Ridhima, who has already registered a victory this season, carded a one-under 71 to get to seven-under 137, the lowest two-round aggregate this season. At the end of two rounds, she leads by four shots.

Amateur Anika Verma shot a second straight 71 to reach three-under 141; she now sits two shots clear of the third-placed Gaurika Bishnoi (73) at the Jaypee Greens .

Siddhi Kapoor (72) is fourth, Anisha Padukone (76) lies fifth, and Amandeep Drall (75) occupies the sixth position. Ananya Datar (75) and Asmitha Sathish (82), an amateur, are tied-seventh. Asmitha endured a series of errors after having ensured the second-best score of 68 on the first day; she had a triple-bogey and a double-bogey.

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Nayanika Sanga (76), and amateur, and Afshan Fatima (78) complete the top 10. Gursimar Badwal shot a round of 73 to occupy the tied-12th position alongside Neha Tripathi.

Ridhima, in the first round, had recorded the season’s best round on a par-72 course. At six-under-66, she bettered Neha’s five-under-66 in Pune. In the second round, Ridhima birdied the first and sixth holes, and bogeyed on seventh and ninth. A birdie on par-5 13th and par-4 17th, and a bogey on par-4 14th took her to 71.

Lacklustre finish

For Anika, the second round could have been even better than her first round; she was five-under and bogey-free when she arrived at the 15th tee. She, then, dropped three shots in four holes — the 15th, the 17th, and 18th — to finish at two-under 70.

Gaurika, too, had a disappointing finish to her round, after having been one-under through 16 holes. She birdied the first, sixth and 11th holes, but dropped a double-bogey on the second before the bogeys on the last two holes.

Asmitha struggled as well. She triple-bogeyed the par-5 third, bogeyed the fourth, double-bogeyed the sixth, and bogeyed the ninth again. She had just one birdie — on par-3 eighth — as she turned in a six-over 42. On the back-nine, she bogeyed four times and had no birdied for a 40 and a day’s card of 72. She slipped from second to tied-seventh.