Royal Ranthambore Athletic Drive stage valiant fightback to win at Lloyd DGC League  

Gaurav Gupta of Royal Ranthambore Athletic Drive lets it rip off the tee box. Gaurav was instrumental in in team’s coming back from two games down to win against MMG Coca-Cola.

Khel Today Bureau

New Delhi: Royal Ranthambore Athletic Drive staged an outstanding fightback against MMG Coca-Cola, coming back to win from two games down and three to play on day-11 of the Fourth Edition of the ‘Lloyd Delhi Golf Club League powered by Radico’.

MMG Coca- Cola started off in grand fashion winning the first two games of their match against Royal Ranthambore Athletic Drive. First Viraj Gadhoke and Sunita Dutt and then Arvinder Singh Johar and Keshav Krishna Kapur were the architects of these wins. With the third game tied, things looked  relatively bleak for Royal Ranthambore Athletic Drive. However in one of the most outstanding comebacks of the League, Royal Ranthambore Athletic Drive went on to win three straight games to win the match by a 3-2 margin. The star of the day for the winning team was the duo of Aditya Uday Bedi and Gaurav Gupta, who won a crunch match for their team against the team of Ikjyot Singh Bahl and Nalin Khanna after the two teams went into the sixth and final game tied 2-2. The winning team won 3 points.

In the opening match of the day Birdie Machine went on the aggressive right from the start against Bharat Strikers, to register three straight wins in the first three games. Bharat Strikers however stemmed the rot with the duo of Rohit Modwel and Sunil Bapna winning the fourth game and the team of Jag Sagar Chand and Dr. Hardeep Singh winning the fifth. Birdie Machine however romped home to wins in the final game to triumph by a 4-2 margin.  This earned them 3 points.

The third match of the day was a one-sided affair with Dayal Opticals beating Victorious Choice 5-1 to annexe 3 points.  Dayal Opticals won the first two games but Victorious Choice staged a comeback with a win in the third game where, Rajiv Kumar Pandey and Col. Mohit Nasa beat Shravan Advani and Sunil Dhawan of Dayal Opticals.  However, thereafter Dayal Opticals didn’t give their opponents an inch, going on to win the next three games in a row.

In the fourth match of the day, Sara Golf Code won their opening clash against Bliss Golfers, with Jaiveer Singh Atwal and Govindpal Singh Chawla beating the duo of Rohan Galhotra and Viraj Singh in a close contest.  Bliss Golfers came back strongly to win the next four games and a win in the final game by Sara Golf Code could not prevent them from losing 4-2.  Bliss Golfers pocketed 3 points for their win.

In the finals contest of the day, Sterling Swingers beat Sudhir Power 4-2.  Sudhir Power began on the right note, with Armaan Malhotra and Fakria Abdhulla beating Najeeb Jung and AK Pathak of Sterling Swingers. Sterling however, came back to win the next three games.  A win in the fifth game for Sudhir Power was nothing more than a consolation prize with Sterling Swingers wrapping up the day’s proceedings with their fourth win of the match in the sixth and final game to bag 3 points.

The League is being played on a four-ball better ball Matchplay Format and over two stages – a Round Robin stage followed by a Knock-out stage. During each playoff match between two teams in the Round Robin stage, each team will field 6 pairs (12 players). One pair from each team will play against a pair from the other team in the above-mentioned format, with all the players playing off 90% of their original handicaps. The teams will get points for their wins. The 24 teams have been divided into 4 groups. After the Round Robin stage, during which the teams from one group will compete against each other. The top two teams from each group will qualify for the Knock-out stage starting with the Quarter-finals. In the Knock-out Stage the matches between two teams will be contested by seven  pairs (14 players). The Finals, as mentioned earlier, will be played on 26^th October, 2024.