KATHMANDU, MARCH 17

Nepali professional golfer Sukra Bahadur Rai slipped 20 places down to tied 34 after the third round of the PGTI Players Championship at the Tollygunge Club in Kolkata today.

Rai faltered to four-over 74 on the third day for the 54- hole total of one-under 220.

He shot a three-over 37 on the front nine before playing one-over 37 on the par-70 course. Rai, who was tied for 14th in the first two rounds, shared the 34th place with seven Indian golfers - Rajiv Kumar Jatiwal, Amardeep Malik, Divyanshu Bajaj, Anshul Patel, Yashas Chandra MS, Arjun Bhati and Brashwarpal Singh.

Rai carded four-under 64 in the first round and one-under 69 on the second day but he failed to maintain the momentum and he was undone by one each triple bogey and double bogeys along with three bogeys. He carded a total of four birdies but that did not help his cause after he faced Out of Bounds (OB) twice. 'I could not put it straight from the tee today,' said Rai. 'Putting was better than previous rounds but I missed a lot of greens on regulations in the third round. And on top of that, I had to OBs,' he added.

Rai, however, realised that he needed to focus on consistency.

Rai is on his way to repeating the performance of previous event in Ahmedabad where he made the cut before faltering on the last two days to slip outside top 50. 'It was not that bad on the back nine until I faced a double bogey on the last hole. I need to work on consistency and try to improve ranking,' he added.

Rai dropped four shots in the first three holes after he faced a bogey on the second and suffered a triple bogey seven on the third. He recovered with birdies on the fourth and seventh but again dropped a shot on the eighth. On the back nine, he dropped a shot on the second before carding birdies on the 13th and 15th holes.

He then faced a double bogey on the final hole.

The third day performance distanced Rai to 16 strokes off the pace in the event that carries a cash purse of five million India rupees. Yuvraj Singh Sandhu shot a nine-under 61 for the 54-hole total of 17-under 193 and he opened up threestroke lead over Shamim Khan (65), Ajeetesh Sandhu (65) and Viraj Madappa (62).

Overnight leader Rahil Gangjee (67) slipped to fifth at 13-under, while Rashid Khan was further one place down at 10-under. Chikkarangappa S and Bangladesh's Md Zamal Hossain Mollah shared the eighth place at nine-under 201.

A version of this article appears in the print on March 18, 2022, of The Himalayan Times