Tokyo: Indian golfer Aditi Ashok carded a three-under 67 in the third round to be in contention of at least a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics here Friday. Aditi Ashok is currently in second position and is a strong contender to win India’s maiden golf medal at the Olympics.
The Bangalorean has her mother, Maheshwari as her caddy. Aditi shot five birdies against two bogeys and moved to 12-under. She is three strokes adrift of leader Nelly Korda of USA who carded a two-under 69 in the penultimate round.
Four players – New Zealand’s Lydia Ko (66), Australia’s Hannah Green (67), Demark’s Kristine Pederson (70) and Japan’s Mone Inami (68) – shared the third spot with totals of 10-under 203.
Aditi was three-under after picking up shots on fourth, sixth and seventh holes before bogeys on ninth and 11th pulled her back. However, she made amends with birdies on the 15th and 17th to keep herself in the hunt for a historic medal.
The other Indian golfer in fray, Diksha Dagar, remained in the lower half of the leaderboard after an erratic one-over 72. It was her third successive over-par card of the week.
This is Aditi’s second Olympic appearance. She had finished tied 41st in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro edition. Aditi said since she played only a few tournaments in May-June. She said she got infected by the coronavirus and that has probably lost distance off the tee. Yet her short game has helped her.
“I didn’t really have my best, especially on the long holes with the long approaches where I wasn’t as consistent. So, yeah, definitely it was a good day and I did not make as many bogeys as I could have,” Aditi informed.
“My putting wasn’t as good today as the first two days. So those couple par putts that were like the one on 12 and the one on 18, helped because I knew my putting wasn’t that good today (Friday) compared to the first two,” added the Indian golfer.
Aditi was also candid about the following golf back home. “Nobody really follows golf as much. It’s not that they know about it and don’t follow it, it’s just they don’t know much about the sport to know that a Major is more prestigious than the Olympics,” she pointed.