Keshav Mishra who almost bagged the title in the second round itself with a brilliant round of nine-under 63 and consolidated his lead to 10 strokes on the penultimate round, lost five strokes on the final day. Despite the fumble, he annexed the Royal Challenge Indian Golf Tour's Northern Indian Amateur championship at the Army Golf Course in New Delhi on Friday.
The 26-year-old finished with a tournament tally of 6-under 282 to win by four strokes.
With the winner almost decided, the rest of the field was left to fight for the second place. Vikrant Chopra, playing alongside cricket legend Kapil Dev and veteran Vikramjit Singh, submitted a card of two-under 70 to end up as the runner-up.
Gaganjeet Bhullar, who at 16, is one of the leading junior players, carded the day's best of four-under 68 to occupy the third place along with Ranjit Singh and AS Lehal.
Gagan Verma finished fifth with a total of 290, while Amardip Malik and Vikram Rana were tied for the tied-seventh place, with a solitary stroke behind.
Keshav Mishra's game today reflected a mixture of caution and aggression, with the cherry-faced amateur falling prey to the latter, overshooting the greens on most occasions. Before he realized, he was four-over for the day with a quadruple of bogeys starting from the third. His back nine was slightly better with only two bogeys - on the 10th and 13th. The only solace was a birdie on the par-5 eighth.
"I didn't want to play aggressive today and my strategy was to make as many pars as I could. But I guess, the adrenalin was too much. It was a peculiar situation where I had to fight with myself," said the IOCL-employed Keshav.
"I actually wanted to prove a point to the selectors. Hence I adopted an aggressive approach," he added.
Meanwhile, Vikrant Chopra who was 11 strokes behind the leader made a determined approach on the final day. Struggling to make pars, the 24-year-old bogeyed the fifth and seventh. However, he pulled up his socks as he birdied the par-5 eighth, to be one-over for the front nine.
Playing on his home course then made three birdies on the 12th, 14th and 18th to salvage a second position.
"I wasn't thinking about the huge lead. I just concentrated on my game, especially my putting which was a bother for the past three days," said Vikrant.
Gagnjeet Bhullar, a class 12th student of MGN Kapurthala, played an attacking game. The resultant was a brilliant round of four-under 68 which was laced with six birdies and two bogeys, including one on the opening hole. The other came on the ninth. The birdies came on the 3rd, 8th, 11th, 12th, 15th and 17th.
Scores (after 72 holes): 282_Keshav Mishra (73,63,69,77); 286_Vikrant Chopra (71,72,73,70); 289_Gaganjeet Bhullar (75,72,74,68), AS Lehal (75,73,73,68), Ranjit Singh (76,68,71,74); 290_Gagan Verma (74,73,73,70); 291_Amardip Mallik (75,75,72,69), Vikram Rana (75,73,71,72); 292_Rajeev Kumar (73,74,75,70); 293_Simarjeet Singh (70,73,73,77); 294_Manav Das (73,75,74,72); 295_Vikramjit Singh (74,69,75,77).
