Karandeep wins strokeplay segment at Gurgaon golf tourney

Chandigarh's Karandeep Kocchar held his nerves till the end to defeat Delhi's Arjun Prasad and finish at the top of the strokeplay segment of the 115th Amateur Golf Championship of India here on Wednesday.

In a rivetiing contest between two 16-year-olds at the Classic Golf Resort, Kocchar and Prasad matched each other stroke for stoke till the end before the Chandigarh lad clinched victory at the fifth play-off hole.

Karandeep will now be the top-seeded player in the match play format of the tournament that will begin on Thursday.

Karandeep, who finished tied-14 at the 2015 Asia-Pacific Junior Golf Championship in Taiwan, carded two-under 70. Arjun, winner of the 2015 Eastern India Junior Championship, submitted a scorecard of three-under 69. Both Karandeep and Arjun returned identical two-day scores of four-under 140.

India's top amateur Aman Raj of Patna shot a remarkable five-under 67 on Wednesday for a total of two-under 142 after two rounds. He shares the third position along with Faridabad's Priyanshu Singh and Mysore's Yashas Chandra, the overnight leader.

Thailand's Napong Sriparsit was sixth after shooting one-under for a total of one-under 143.

In the team championship that was happening concurrently, the Indian team represented by Samarth Dwivedi (145) and Aman Raj (142) clinched the title with a combined total of 287.

A total of 32 players have made the cut for the knockout stage after six players were tied for the 29th place. Four players were selected from among them after the first play off-hole. The tournament will conclude on December 20 with the 36-hole final.