Indian Open golf: Cautious Keita Nakajima slips up, Eugenio Chacarra takes clubhouse lead ahead of final round | Golf News
Across the 126 holes that Keita Nakajima has played on the DLF Golf and Country Club, including a dominant first DP World Tour title at last year’s Hero Indian Open in his debut season, the 24-year-old from Japan has hit 39 birdies and one eagle. None of them came on Saturday.
On Gurugram’s unforgiving golf course where scoring can be so tricky, Nakajima seemed to have found a blueprint to maximise opportunities. But on a day when gusty winds turned conditions particularly tough – only three players were able to shoot an under par score in the third round here – the defending champion went into damage-limitation mode to protect his lead.
Teeing off as joint leader and shortly after that making the top spot on the leaderboard his own on moving day – the penultimate day of a golf tournament when the players try to best position themselves for a final day push – Nakajima was in risk-free mode, attempting to go about his round with nary a gamble, limiting his aggression to stay consent as those around him tried to make up for early slip ups.
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But Nakajima would learn that fortunes can change in 15 minutes; that margins can be razor thin in conditions as tough as these. Having gone error-free until the 15th hole, the 34-year-old hit two bogeys in the last four, to finish his day with a two-over 74. Eugenio Chacarra, the 25-year-old from Spain who was joint-leader alongside him at the start of the round, made up for his early makes with a birdie on the 15th and finished with a one-over 73, taking the clubhouse lead one stroke with a cumulative score of three under.
After finishing with the day’s best round with a one-under 71, South Africa’s Brandon Stone joined Nakajima as tied-second with a cumulative score of two under. Britain’s Matthew Jordan and Sweden’s Jen Dantorp are tied fourth at one under.
The Indian contingent still in the field largely fell away. Only two stayed in the top 25. Last year’s joint-runner up Veer Ahlawat, playing on his home course, carded 74 to take his total score to five over and place him tied-25th. Ajeetesh Sandhu moved up 10 places to tied-15th despite also only carding 74, with a total of four over.
There has been plenty of evidence to suggest that the field has collectively struggled to find rhythm here. Friday’s halfway cut score was as high as six over; the clubhouse leader will start the final round on Sunday at three under. But matters were unexpectedly brutal in the penultimate round.Story continues below this ad
With the greens staying firm and giving no room for error, high winds made matters worse for the golfers. On the back nine, where so many dropped more shots than expected, the tough pin positions meant approach shots had to be hit with pin-point accuracy.
“This course, we know what it is. I mean, it’s just one bad swing of a big number,” Chacarra said. “It’s hard to get it close, but I bet everyone missed. It’s just hard to make putts here. The ultimate anxieties are playing out there. It just feels like you’re constantly on high alert because you’ll have a four or five foot putt and you’re so busy thinking about the next one, you’re actually just lagging them down there,” Stone, in agreement, added.
The stage is now set for tomorrow’s final round to play out like a cat-and-mouse game, with Chacarra to lead, Nakajima and Stone to hunt, and plenty of others to follow. How much of a part the conditions will play remains to be seen.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
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