Late birdies give Kapur chance for Top 10 finish at Perth
Kapur, who began the week with a stunning 66 has since shot 73-71 in the next two rounds. At six-under 206, he is tied-20th, but 11 shots behind the leader Louis Oosthuizen who takes a three shot lead into the final round.
Published : Feb 27, 2016 19:52 IST
Two birdies in the last four holes of the third round kept Shiv Kapur’s hopes alive of securing his first Top-10 finish of the year at the ISPS HANDA Perth International, here today.
Kapur, who began the week with a stunning 66 has since shot 73-71 in the next two rounds. At six-under 206, he is tied-20th, but 11 shots behind the leader Louis Oosthuizen who takes a three shot lead into the final round.
Looking unstoppable at Lake Karrinyup Country Club, Oosthuizen was 7-under the card through 15 holes and had stretched his lead out to five shots. However back-to-back bogeys saw him come back to the field, setting up the final round for a dramatic finish.
Himmat Rai (73) with three birdies, two bogeys and a double was tied 45th, while Gaganjeet Bhullar (71), who had an eagle at second, a double bogey, two other bogeys and three birdies, was tied 54th. Chiragh Kumar (74) was tied 63rd.
Kapur had a troublesome shoulder that flared up before the first round and has still not healed. He said, “It has been an up and down day again. I got off to a good start. But that stretch from six to11 seemed to get me again. I didn’t really hit any poor shots. I hit it into the greenside bunker on seven and ended up making bogey there and on 11, I three-putted. So that stretch of four to five holes was frustrating.”
“But you just got to hang in there like I did yesterday and post a good score to move up the leader-board. It has been that kind of week. The first day was flawless and the last two days, I made too many mistakes although the birdies are still in there.”
“The encouraging thing out of all these is that I’m hitting lots of good shots. Some of the bogeys I made were either bad judgment or just one or two bad swings. My pace on the greens was off a little as they felt a little slower to me today. I’m just going to work on that and hopefully come out with a hot putter like I did the first day.”