Singapore, May 28: India’s star amateurs Sneha Singh and Avani Prashanth had a modest finish at the Queen Sirikit Cup golf tournament, even as Japan ended its 20-year title drought in the tournament.
In sweltering conditions at Singapore’s Laguna National Golf Resort Club, Sneha Singh (75-72-74-69) was the top Indian at tied 14th, while Avani Prashanth (75-73-78-74) was tied 24th. The third Indian, Janniya Dassani (80-82-78-73), was tied 33rd.
Mizuki Hashimoto won the individual honours with rounds of 70-64-72-73 and then combined with Miku Ueta and Ayaka Tezuka to secure their country’s first Asia Pacific Amateur Ladies Team Championship crown since 2002.
The Indians finished ninth in the team standings.
Beginning the final day with a one-stroke advantage, the Japanese posted a last-round score of five-under 139 thanks to 16-year-olds Ueta (68) and Tezuka (71). That gave them a 72-hole aggregate of 20-under 556 and a seven-shot victory over New Zealand.
Chasing a seventh successive win and a 13th triumph in the past 14 stagings of the event, the Korean trio of Lee Ji-hyun, Kim Min-byeol and Bang Shin-sil made a bold early charge. Eventually, though, they had to settle for third on 566.
Hosts Singapore, led splendidly by Shannon Tan, were fourth (567), followed by Chinese Taipei (570), Thailand (574), Australia and Malaysia (577), India (589), Hong Kong (600), the Philippines (611), Indonesia (613) and Myanmar (677)
Even as the individual glory went to Hashimoto, the reigning Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific champion, the evidence of the strength of the Japan team was that her closing one-over 73 was omitted in the event in which the best two daily scores in each three-strong team are counted.
Not one of the winning trio was born when Japan last hoisted the trophy at Malaysia’s A’Famosa Resort, the 2002 team made up of Ai Miyazato, Kyoko Furuya and Ayako Uehara.
The 19-year-old Hashimoto has two more years of college ahead of her before she contemplates turning pro. (PTI)
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