Armed with a two-stroke lead ahead of the final round of the $400,000 Panasonic Open, Mukesh Kumar finds himself at the threshold of making history.
Should this 51-year-old seasoned pro hold his nerves and beat the field on Sunday, he could well be the oldest first-time winner on the Asian Tour.
Mukesh carded a second-round three-under 69 for a tally of 136, two better than Khalin Joshi, Thailand’s Jazz Janewattananond and Sri Lanka’s Mithun Perera.
With the event curtailed to three rounds, the ‘cut’ — that came at four-over 148 — left 42 Indians in a field of 73 players for Sunday’s final round.
Jeev Milkha Singh, following unimpressive rounds of three-over 75 and 73, survived the ‘cut’ after being tied 64th. Shiv Kapur was among those who missed out in spite of bringing in an improved 71 after a first-round 80!
But the day clearly belonged to Mukesh. He began with a hat-trick of birdies — the longest being a 15-footer on the third hole — and added one more on the par-5 eighth hole to move to nine-under for a three-shot lead.
After taking the ‘turn’ with a 32, Mukesh went on to bogey the 12th and 16th holes. On both, Mukesh found bunkers and could not chip out properly and two-putted. Undeterred, he picked up a shot on the par-three 17th, where he sank a birdie-putt from 12 feet.
Late in the round, Mukesh had to share the limelight with Korea’s Sung Lee.
Lee fired a rare ‘hole-in-one’ on the 177-yard par-3 fifth hole and won a BMW Z4 car worth around Rs. 75 lakh.
The scores: Mukesh Kumar (67, 69) 136; Jazz Janewattananond (Tha) (69, 69), Khalin Joshi (67, 71), Mithun Perera (Sri) (70, 68), Shankar Das (71, 67) 138; Rashid Khan (67, 72), Shubhankar Sharma (71, 68), Chiragh Kumar (71, 68); Jyoti Randhawa (67, 72), Deepinder Singh Kullar (73, 66) 139.
Other Indians with sub-par scores: Kapil Kumar (68, 72), Sanjeev Kumar (71, 69), Om Prakash Chouhan (72, 68) 140; Shamim Khan (67, 74), Arjun Atwal (69, 72), Digvijay Singh (70, 71) 141; Honey Baisoya (73, 69), Angad Cheema (71, 71), Abhinav Lohan (72, 70) 142; Ashok Kumar (70, 73), S. Chikkarangappa (71, 72), M. Dharma (71, 72) and Gaurav Pratap Singh (71, 72) 143.
