Gangjee takes joint 5th; Ashok, Mundy manage top-10 finish too

Karachi, Jan 21 (UNI) Rahil Gangjee struggled with his putting and carded an eventful one-under 71 final round to finish a creditable joint fifth at the 300,000 dollar Pakistan Open here today.

Gangjee aggregated 10-under 278 to end nine shots off the winner Airil Rizman Zahiri of Malaysia, who fired two-under 70 to take the top honours.

Ashok Kumar (71) and Uttam Singh Mundy (69) were other Indians to make it into top 10 with the former taking tied seveth spot with nine-under 279 while the latter finishing tied 10th with a total of eight-under 280.

Tied seventh overnight, Gangjee looked in top form as he sank in back-to-back birdie on the first two holes and repeat the same on the sixth and seventh holes. However he couldn't sustain the momentum and dropped consecutive bogeys on the next two to make the turn at two-under.

He went on to drop two more shots on the next two holes but recovered briefly hitting a birdie and an eagle on the 12th and 14th respectively. But for his bogey on the penultimate hole, Gangjee could have finished higher.

Among other Indian in fray, the trio of Vivek Bhandari (67), SSP Chowrasia (70) and Digvijay Singh (75) shared tied 15th spot while Amardeep Malik (74) and Amandeep Johl (76) slipped and ended tied 29th and tied 37th respectively.

Gaganjeet Bhullar (81) and Rahul Ganapathy (75) brought up the rear.

UNI