Kapur finishes 2nd; Bhullar 10th

Pattaya (Sakal Times): Shiv Kapur made a mistake on either side of the turn at the ninth and tenth holes and had to be satisfied with a Tied-2nd place in the Royal Cup on Sunday. 

Kapur, who was defending the title battled to an 1-over 71 and ended at 8-under with three others as South African Justin Harding (68) carried on his excellent form to complete back-to-back wins on the Asian Tour.   Harding finished way ahead at 14-under for a 6-shot win over Kapur, Jake McLeod (67). Chapchai Nirat 68) and Kurt Kitayama (67), all of whom finished at 8-under.

Gaganjeet Bhullar (70) finished T-10 for another good result. It was his third Top-10 finish in last four starts and his other start fetched him T-11 in Sarawak.

S Chikkarangappa (67) and Viraj Madappa (68) were T-14. Himmat Rai (70) was T-36, Khalin Joshi (71) was T-42, Rashid Khan (71) was T-56 and Honey Baisoya (77) was T-59. Kapur started the day with eight straight pars and during the stretch he also missed a couple of makeable putts. 

Meanwhile Harding had three birdies against one bogey in the first eight holes. It was at that juncture, Kapur erred and made a double bogey and frustrated by that he allowed that to linger and bogeyed 10th also. 

That ended his hopes as Harding despite a bogey on ninth and a double on 13th, also made birdies on 10th, 11th, 15th and 16th and finished at 67 for the day 14-under for the week.

Kapur said, “I’m disappointed obviously. Around the turn I played poorly and made a bad decision on the ninth hole in my second shot and then ended making double bogey and carried on the frustration to make bogey on the next hole. So that’s when I lost the tournament and played myself out of it but I’m proud with the way I came back from that despite being completely out of sorts I managed to fight back and finish second.”