Defending champion Chacarra leads by four, OP Chouhan is the top Indian

Eugenio Chacarra in action.

Anand Krishnaswamy

Gurugram: Eugenio Chacarra, the defending champion, opened a four-shot lead after carding his third consecutive under par round of the week at Indian Open Golf Championship.

Chacarra carded 2-under 70 to move his score to 10-under par after 54 holes (67-69-70). Alex Fitzpatrick and MJ Daffue are the two players tied for second place, four strokes behind the leader at 6-under par. Daffue has carded rounds of 71-67-72 while Fitzpatrick carded 71-68-72.

David Law (71-70-70), who is placed T-4 is the only other player to have played under par on all three rounds. He is tied with Freddy Schott (66-73-72).

OP Chouhan is the top Indian in the field with one round left to play in the Hero Indian Open. Chouhan carded 1-over 73 for a score of 1-over par. He is placed T-20 with nine other players.

In the morning a major 36-hole casualty was Indian-American Akshay Bhatia, the Brand Ambassador for Hero MotoCorp, who was also the top world ranked player in the field. With the second round left incomplete on Friday, Bhatia had to come back Saturday morning to complete his second round to try and make the cut. Placed at the cut line at 4-over with two holes to go, Bhatia bogeyed the challenging 17th and fell to 5-over to miss the cut.

Chouhan began his third round with a birdie on the first hole before dropping shots with bogeys on the fourth and seventh holes before making a birdie on the eighth to close the front nine at even par. On the back nine Chouhan had an early birdie on the 11th hole before dropping four shots in three holes with a double bogey on the 12th and bogeys on the 13th and 14th holes. Chouhan picked up shots on the 15th and 17th holes to close the round at 1-over par. Chouhan has a total score of 1-over par for the week (73-71-73).

Other than OP Chouhan two Indians have made the cut this week. 18 year old Manoj S and Kshitij Naveed Kaul. Manoj is currently placed T-54 with a score of 6-over par (76-70-76). Kaul was three shots off from the cut line when play was suspended on the second day with four holes left to play in his second round. On Saturday morning the 25 year old made a birdie and an eagle to squeeze himself into the cut. Kaul is now placed T-63 with a score of 9-over par (73-75-77).

Chacarra started the day with four consecutive pars before making his first birdie of the round on the fifth hole and immediately dropped the shot on the sixth with a bogey. The defending champion closed the front nine with three consecutive birdies to surge ahead of his closest rivals. Two bogeys on the back nine at the 13th and 14th and a birdie on the 16th saw the Spaniard close the day at 10-under par with a four shot lead over Daffue and Fitzpatrick.

If he wins on Sunday, Chacarra would be the only fourth player in history to successfully defend the Hero Indian Open title one year after he denied Keita Nakajima the pleasure of setting the same record

Chacarra already holds the distinction of being the only Spanish player to have won the title. Kenji Hosoishi (1967, 1968), Jyoti Randhawa (2006, 2007) and SSP Chawrasia (2016, 2017) are the three players who have successfully defended the title.

If Daffue or Fitzpatrick win they would also be able to set records of their own. Daffue would be the first player since Englishman Richard McEvoy to win a Hotel Planner Tour and a DP World Tour event in consecutive weeks in 2018. Daffue won the DP World PGTI Open just last week at the Classic Golf and Country Club which is just 30km away from the DLF Golf and Country Club.

Fitzpatrick is chasing the distinction of being part of the only sibling duo to have a title in consecutive weeks on two separate tours. Alex Fitzpatrick is the younger brother of Matt Fitzpatrick, who won the Valspar Championship last week in Florida.