Germany’s Paul led by five at the halfway stage but made back-to-back bogeys at the second and third on day three to open the door for the chasing pack.

The 28-year-old bounced back brilliantly, though, reeling off a hat-trick of gains at the sixth, seventh and eighth to take a three-shot lead into the turn.

After making a good par save at the 10th, last week’s Thailand Classic runner-up Paul created plenty of birdie chances over the next few holes but had to settle for pars.

There was a two-shot swing late in the day as Paul bogeyed the par-three 16th and fellow German Marcel Siem birdied the 17th up ahead, reducing Paul’s advantage to a single shot.

Paul made a fabulous birdie three at the 17th to move two clear once more but after Siem made a birdie at the last, Paul could only manage a par there to head into the clubhouse on 11-under par.

Four-time DP World Tour winner Siem, who regained his card at the Qualifying School late last year, sat alone in second place on 10-under after making six birdies and one bogey in his 67.

Dutchman Joost Luiten, who is a six-time winner, was another two shots back in third following his 68.

Midway leader Paul made a nervy start to his third round, following up a dropped shot at the second with another bogey on the par-three third having narrowly missed his par putt from the edge of the green.

He got a shot back at the sixth after sending his approach to close range and knocking in the putt.

And after making another birdie at the seventh from around five feet, Paul made it three in a row on the eighth.

Paul saved par at the 10th before giving himself two good birdie chances at the 11th and 12th but he could not convert them, and his lead was reduced to two shots by a charging Siem.

Paul made a stunning up-and-down for par at the difficult 14th after missing the green there, before passing up an outside birdie chance at the 15th.

A three-putt bogey on the 16th saw Paul drop his first shot of the week on the back nine, but he bounced straight back with a ten-foot birdie on the 17th to head to the 18th with a two-shot lead.

With Siem making a birdie from six feet at the last, sparking huge celebrations, Paul opted to lay up and he gave himself a birdie chance but had to settle for par after missing from inside ten feet.

Paul, who is aiming to become a two-time DP World Tour winner on Sunday, said: “With a five-shot lead, I knew there was still 36 holes to go. I obviously didn’t get off to the best start but I just tried to focus on myself.

“There’s so much golf yet. I just tried to stay patient. I know on this course you’re going to get some bad breaks here and there. Six, seven, eight I had a couple of nice birdies and then played pretty solid on the back nine.

“I hit a couple of great putts but they just seemed to slip by. Had some lip-outs from around eight feet, sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t, it’s not in my control.

“Short game is my strength, I would say. I gave myself a lot of chances and sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t. I just tried to stay positive. I’m in a great position and I’m looking forward to playing with Marcel tomorrow.

“Getting the win would be amazing. Such an iconic event here but I think that’s the hard part. You don’t want to think ahead, you want to stay in the present because 18 holes is a lot of golf left. I’ll just try to get some rest tonight and look forward to tomorrow.”

The post Yannik Paul keeps his nose in front at Hero Indian Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

After four years away due to the Covid-19 pandemic, India’s national open is staging its sixth edition as a Tour event.

Hero’s relationship with the Tour began in 2015 at the Hero Indian Open and the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles are the title partner of three events on the 2023 schedule.

Bjørn, the 2018 Ryder Cup-winning captain and a 15-time winner on the DP World Tour, spoke highly of how Munjal has helped bring golf to new audiences.

“When you’ve got people like Dr Pawan who puts his heart into golf and into other sports, it’s great,” Bjørn said on the eve of the tournament. “He’s got his heart set on supporting the game of golf and other sports. These people don’t come around very often and he’s got a great love for this game.”

Earlier this year, Hero became the Title Partner of the Dubai Desert Classic, the longest-running event in the Middle East.

During the 2023 Desert Swing, Hero also supported the inaugural Hero Cup — a team match play contest which provided European players experience in the format ahead of the 2023 Ryder Cup.

Bjørn is playing in the event for the first time in five years and is excited by the week ahead as DLF Golf and Country Club plays host for the fourth time with a record prize fund of US$2 million available.

“This event, at home, is important to him, it’s close to his heart and we come here as players and we can see how much it means to him,” he added. “We went for dinner last night and he tells his stories of living in India and what it’s like, then all those things add to what this Tour is all about.

“This Tour is an international Tour and we have players from all over the world.

“We go to those corners and we appreciate being part of those different cultures and we come here to India happily, we’re grateful to be here and we’re grateful to Dr Munjal for his support.”

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By Alex Myers
Next week’s Hero Indian Open in New Delhi has been called off after a joint decision by the European Tour, the Asian Tour, the Indian Golf Union, and the tournament’s title sponsor, Hero MotoCorp. No makeup dates have been announced.

“In these difficult global circumstances, we fully understand and appreciate the recent restrictions introduced in respect of travel into India,” European Tour CEO Keith Pelley said in a statement. “As these new measures now prevent many members of both Tours being able to play in the tournament, everyone involved in the staging of the Hero Indian Open felt it was the correct decision to postpone the tournament.”

The Magical Kenya Open, which was to be played this week, was postponed last Friday. Two other European Tour events scheduled for April, the Maybank Championship and the Volvo China Open, were previously pushed back.

The Hero Indian Open became a European Tour co-sanctioned event beginning in 2015. Scotland’s Stephen Gallacher is the tournament’s defending champion.

So far, the LPGA Tour has cancelled three events, the last of which was to be played this week in China. The PGA Tour schedule has yet to be affected.

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By John Huggan
At the end of an extraordinary and ever-fluctuating day’s play on what is surely one of the game’s more extraordinary courses—the DLF Golf & Country Club in New Delhi—Stephen Gallacher somehow emerged as winner of the European Tour’s Hero Indian Open. The 44-year-old Scot made seven birdies in a closing 71, one under par over the Gary Player-design that some argue resembles something from Jurassic Park, to reach nine-under 279 for the week, one shot better than runner-up, Masahiro Kawamura. Spain’s Jorge Campillo was third, another stroke back.

Those rather bland numbers conceal much heartache, however. And carnage, from which even Gallacher was not immune. Courtesy of two lost balls, the eventual champion made a quadruple-bogey 8 on the 456-yard seventh. Still ahead by two shots with five holes to play, overnight leader Julian Suri needed six shots to get down from just off the green at the 461-yard 14th hole, the American running up Sunday’s second quad.

Those were not the highest scores of the day though. India’s Rahil Gangjee accumulated a sextuple-bogey 11 on the 624-yard closing hole, while Jens Dantorp of Sweden finished his round of 83 with three triple bogeys—there were nine in total—on the last five holes. In all, the 70-strong field amassed nine triple-bogeys and 46 doubles in increasingly blustery conditions that only accentuated the severe contours of the endlessly eccentric and speedy putting surfaces.

Eight men, including former European No. 1 Robert Karlsson, shot in the 80s; only seven managed to break 70, Campillo’s 67 the best of those.

None of which was bothering Gallacher, whose brilliant ball-striking and three birdies over the closing four holes was in stark contrast to the destruction surrounding him. Even then though, the former Ryder Cup player had to wait to see if his score would be good enough to give him a fourth tour victory and his first since the 2014 Dubai Desert Classic. Standing on the final tee, Kawamura needed to make a birdie to tie, an eventuality made all but impossible by a drive that finished unplayable. In the end, the 25-year-old from Japan, a graduate of last year’s qualifying school, holed from 20-feet for a par-5 to clinch second spot.

“It was a bit disappointing, to begin with,” admitted Gallacher, who had his 18-year-old son, Jack, as his caddie. “I got off to a ropey start. Five off the tee on seven wasn’t good. I was pretty calm even after that hole though. There’s nothing really much you can do other than keep hitting shots and focus on the process. To see that I was only five back gave me a wee bit of encouragement. I thought Just hang in there. When I birdied 15, I saw that Julian Suri had come back and then when I got to the 16th green I was tied for the lead. I just tried to finish as strong as I could and I did that.”

Gallacher poses with his 17-year-old son, Jack, who worked as his caddie en route to victory in India. (Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)

That he could do it with his son by his side made ending the victory draught all the more special.

“He’s a great caddie, quite chilled,” Gallacher said. “When you’re 44 you’re in the sort of twilight so it’s a big win for me. It was good to finish it out the way I did.”

The post Stephen Gallacher becomes the European Tour’s latest feel-good winner with his victory at the Hero Indian Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The 32-year-old Thai, nicknamed the ‘Big Dolphin’ courtesy of his burly physique, will tee it up in the Dubai-HQed Tour’s first 72-hole event at Pattana Golf Club and Resort in Chon Buri, a 135 minute drive south-east of Bangkok, from Tuesday.

After winning three Thai Amateur Championships and the IMG Academy Junior World Golf Championships in 1997 and 2002, Meesawat turned pro in 2004 and landed his first pro title at the SK Telecom Open in South Korea two years later.

He has one other Asian Tour title – the 2014 Yeangder Tournament Players Championship – and has played a total of 127 European Tour events since 2013, including qualifying for the 2011 Open Championship where he missed the cut at Royal St George’s.

After losing his full playing privileges last season, the Hua Hin native is currently 92nd in the Race to Dubai standings having banked €107,697 in six 2016-17 wraparound season starts, headlined by top 15 finishes at the Australian PGA Championship (T10), Omega Dubai Desert Classic (T15) and Hero Indian Open (T13).

The son of Suthepi, the first Thai to win the Thailand Open, Meesawat came closest to a European Tour breakthrough when he dipped out in a three-way playoff for the 2013 Hong Kong Open to a Miguel Angel Jimenez birdie in the first extra hole.

Ranked 307th in the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR), Meesawat is one of 33 Thais in a field for this week’s $50,000 event including players from 25 countries. The Pattana Golf Championship is the climax to the MENA Tour’s three tournament Thailand swing and carries additional OWGR points given it is a round longer than the tour’s usual 54-hole offerings.

Switzerland’s Dubai-based Michael Harradine and Thailand’s Worathon Zeng will lead the challenge in the amateur division that has attracted nine entries. Harradine won amateur honours at last week’s Mountain Creek Open on on six-under 210 last week while Zeng had reigned supreme at the first Thailand swing event, the MahaSamutr Masters.

“We are very excited to be part of the MENA Tour. It will provide us with a great opportunity to showcase our championship course to a field which wears a global look,” said Rujirapun Juangroongruangkit, Executive Vice President of Pattana Golf Club.

Mohamed Juma Buamaim, chairman of the MENA Tour, thanked the Pattana Golf Club and Resort management for supporting the event, saying: “We couldn’t have asked for a better venue to stage our landmark 72-hole tournament. I am confident it will become a permanent stop on the tour.”

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The cautious manner in which the now two-time champion, S.S.P. (Shiv Sankar Prasad) Chawrasia, played the final hole of the Hero Indian Open at the DLF Golf & Country Club aptly told the story of a somewhat wacky week and underlined the eccentricities of the Gary Player-designed layout.

Without ever leaving the fairway on the rock, rough and water-strewn 624-yard par 5, the diminutive Calcutta-native teed-off with a 3-wood, then hit sand wedge/8-iron/sand wedge to the green en-route to completing a seven-shot victory with a two-putt bogey 6.

And there’s more. On the previous hole, Chawrasia’s blind approach struck the massive rocks beyond the putting surface and rebounded safely onto the putting surface.

In contrast, his playing partner, Gavin Green of Malaysia, saw his second shot hit the railroad ties supporting the bank of a bunker and careen off into the spectacularly rocky hazard short and right of the green. Little wonder then that only seven men were under par at the end of an eventful four days in the Indian capital of New Delhi. And little wonder then that play was painfully slow, one understandably disgruntled competitor reporting that it took four hours to complete 12 holes on the rain-affected third day.

Still, none of the above should detract from the beautifully controlled performance put in by Chawrasia, one of the shorter hitters on the European circuit. That closing bogey was one of only six dropped shots recorded by the 39-year-old four-time European Tour champion. Remarkably too, all four have come both in his home country and the same city. The Delhi Golf Club was the scene of Chawrasia’s victories in the 2008 Indian Masters and 2016 Hero Indian Open. And now he has two wins at the DLF, the first the 2011 Avantha Masters.

Having predicted a winning score of 10-under-par at the beginning of the week, Chawrasia proved himself prescient as well as proficient by hitting that mark exactly with his closing 71. No one else was close. Green was alone in second place, one shot ahead of Scotland’s Scott Jamieson and former BMW PGA champion Matteo Manassero. Two of the only three players in the field ranked inside the world’s top 100—Rafa Cabrera-Bello of Spain and India’s Anirban Lahiri—were in the group of three tied for fifth spot.

SSP Chawrasia gained 275,828 points and made a massive jump in the European Tour’s Race to Dubai, moving from 194th to 18th position as he targets a debut appearance in the season-ending DP World Tour Championship from November 16-19 at Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai

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Moroccan professional Faycal Serghini expects the biggest bombers in the 136-strong field will have an advantage at Palmeraie Country Club but is confident the $US40,000 Casablanca Open will ultimately be decided on the greens.

Patience is often a virtue with the flat stick but Serghini believes it will be even more so this week as the Palmeraie putting surfaces are still bedding in.

“The course is fairly wide open and will definitely favour the long hitters if they can hit the fairways, but the greens will be tough to read since they are too young and tricky,” said Serghini who has played the course many times since its opening six months ago.

“You can always expect the unexpected as it will be the first professional event on this course, but I do feel players will have fun playing on this course which provides a fair test of shot-making skills.”

Serghini, who runs a golf academy in his native Casablanca, is a three-time MENA Tour runner-up but believes his game ready for the first event of the developmental tour’s season.

“Like the golf course, my game is also in great shape. I am working hard on my putting and if it clicks I can expect good scores,” he said.

The season’s first field includes 19 amateurs and players from 25 countries including defending order of merit champion Craig Hinton and fellow Englishmen Zane Scotland, Luke Joy, Andrew Marshall and Joshua White.

A notable absentee at the 6571-yard Palmeraie Country Club will be Rayhan Thomas with the Dubai amateur taking the week off after missing the cut in this week’s Hero Indian Open on the European Tour.

Thomas, who created history by becoming the first amateur to win a MENA Tour event at his home Dubai Creek Open last September, is scheduled to make his 2017 debut at next week’s Royal Golf Mohammedia Open, also in Casablanca.

The post Putting patience will be key in Casablanca says Moroccan MENA Tour star Serghini appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The 17-year-old Dubai born Indian amateur savoured 18-holes Tuesday with Australian Brett Rumford who is fresh from capturing the new World Super 6 Perth title in mid February.

After teeing it up with defending champion Rickie Fowler in Abu Dhabi and Indian No.1 Anirban Lahiri and reigning U.S. Masters champion Danny Willett in Dubai earlier this year, the chance to witness Rumford’s wedge wizardry at close quarters was invaluable as he continues his big time golf education.

“Brett Rumford has one of the best short games in the world and to be watching him hit some chips and some irons shots, it was just fantastic, so enjoyed that,” Thomas told Golf Digest Middle East ahead of the $1.75m event which is co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour.

Thomas will tee it up alongside Portugal’s José-Filipe Lima and Frenchman Damien Perrier in the first round at 11.30am (India time/10am UAE time) on Thursday and will need his short game in good order if his initial impressions of DLF Golf & Country Club in New Delhi are any indication.

“The course is in fantastic shape, I mean this is one of the best courses I’ve played in India. It’s a very tricky, slopey course,” said Thomas who also enjoyed six tune-up holes alongside India’s Gaganjeet Bhullar on Tuesday.

“You need to be very focused on every shot cause you can’t let one shot go because you’ll end up making a very high score. It’s a very challenging course but its a fantastic lay-out, the greens are running superb, very slopey, a lot of tricky pin positions but there are still some birdies to be made out there.”

After making his first European Tour cut in Dubai, there is great interest in Thomas’ progress in New Delhi but the world amateur No. 98 and Indian amateur No.1 is just determined to make the most of his sponsors’ invite.

“I’m not putting any expectations on myself. If I make the cut, if I miss the cut, if I finish top 10, don’t finish top 10, I’m not going to let it weigh down on me.

“For this week it’s pretty much just play good golf. As long as I learn something from the week I’ll be happy.”   

The post Rayhan Thomas laps up Indian Open practice round with six-time European Tour winner Brett Rumford appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The 17-year-old Dubai-born Indian amateur has just secured an invite to next month’s Hero Indian Open on the back of his dream Omega Dubai Desert Classic debut.

It will be a fourth European Tour start for the MENA Tour history-maker who kicked on from a sensational opening 68 with rounds of 75-74-74 to finish T60 in the Desert Classic at Emirates GC earlier this month.

Thomas is sure to attract considerable attention when he tees it up at DLF Golf & Country Club in New Delhi after outscoring Tiger Woods by nine shots in the first round in Dubai en-route to making the cut as the two-time champion and former world No.1 sadly hobbled his way back to the U.S.

“I got the invite a couple of days ago so that’s pretty awesome,” said Thomas of the invite to the March 9-12 Indian Open.

“I was pushing pretty hard for that, so to get it is pretty nice. I get to play both my home Opens now.”

After missing the cut by five shots at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship in mid January, Thomas sat out the middle leg of the Desert Swing in Qatar. The time on the sidelines, coupled with his Majlis magic. has him amped for Indian.

“It just makes you want to be out there so bad,” said Thomas who sprung to prominence by becoming the first amateur winner of a MENA Tour event, the Dubai Creek Open in September.

“The Desert Classic really got the juices going so I just want to get out there and play as much as I can on the big stage. I just cannot wait.”

Beyond the Indian Open, Thomas is eyeing the MENA Tour’s second Moroccan stop of 2017, the Royal Golf Mohammedia Open in Casablanca and the developmental tour’s Thailand swing either side of an invite to the prestigious Sage Valley Junior Invitational in the U.S. in April.

Beyond that he will have a tilt at the British and U.S. Amateur Championships, the U.S. Junior Championship and is currently leading the International team standings for September’s Junior Presidents Cup to be held at Liberty National in New Jersey two days before the senior contest.

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