Golfer Sharmila clinches maiden title of the season

Hyderabad, Aug 5 (IANS) Ending her title drought this season, Bengaluru's Sharmila Nicollet held her nerves against Kolkata's Neha Tripathi to clinch the 12th leg of the Hero women Professional Tour at the Hyderabad golf club here on Friday.

The two players had to repeat the 18th hole four times before the issue was finally settled in favour of Sharmila at the Rs 6,00,000 event.

Sharmila's card of the day comprised of bogeys on the fourth, eighth, 12th, and 18th holes. She also carded a triple on 16th hole. Her birdies came on the sixth, 10th and 11th holes to finish with a score of 228 after 54 holes.

Giving Sharmila a run for her money was order of merit leader Neha, who had the best score of the day of one over 72. Her card comprised of birdies on the sixth, 16th and 17th holes, and bogeys on the third, 13th, 14th and 15th holes, to finish with a score 228 after 54 holes which was identical to Sharmila's total.

Overnight leader Amandeep Drall had an indifferent start as she carded a double bogey on the very first hole. Her front nine comprised of bogeys on the second, third, fifth, seventh and eighth holes and her lone birdie of the day came on the fourth.

Her back nine comprised of a bogey on the 17th hole and double on the 13th. She finished third with a total score 231 after 54 holes.

Pune's Shweta Galande finished fourth followed by Delhi girl Ankita Tiwana at fifth and Kapurthala's Gursimar Badwal at sixth.

Delhi's Ayesha Kapur finished seventh while Bengaluru's Trisha Sunil and Chandigarh's Saaniya Sharma finished with identical scores of 240 to be tied for the eighth spot.

The tour now moves moves to iconic Delhi Golf Club (DGC), which will be played from September 20 to 23.