NEW DELHI – Nov. 20, 2004 – It was Irina Brar's day at the Delhi Golf Club on Friday as she claimed her second Ladies Northern India title with a record score of 6 under par --the first time ever that an Indian woman player has won a Championship with a sub-par score. She won with ease as she trounced the rest of the field of the country's top women players, her aggregate of 282 a full 13 strokes ahead of Anjali Chopra and 18 strokes ahead of third placed thirteen year old Junior star, Vaishavi Sinha.
"Awesome" Irina is the only way to describe the Chandigarh star's performance, three sub-par rounds in four days, even though on the final day the birdie putts did not drop as they had been doing earlier. Nor did they drop for the two players behind her and between Irina, Anjali and Vaishavi, they had, incredibly, only four birdies between them, two of them from Vaishavi, one each from the others. Vaishavi brought in the best round of the day, a two over par 72 and jumped to third spot as Mayali Talwar faded away with a disastrous 80.
Golf was at its cruelest for defending champion Parnita Garewal, who lost 5 strokes on two holes, a double bogey on the 9th and a triple on the 16th, and yet brought in a card of 77, five over par! Eleven pars and three birdies made up the rest of a roller coaster, which saw her probably hitting the best shots of the field. She settled for 4th spot three strokes behind Vaishavi.
But it was Irina all the way as not only did she collect a plethora of trophies for the handicap events of the Delhi Ladies Golf Week played concurrently over 54 holes of the 72 hole main even, but she collected Rs.15,000 for her sub-par rounds, and an extra fillip of five thousand presented to her by the Delhi Golf Club. To further sweeten the day, Mr Siddarth Shriram, Chairman of Mawana Sugar, of the Shriram Group of Companies, the main sponsors for the Championship announced that Irina would also receive her weight in Marwana Sugar.
Mr Shriram, a loyal and ardent supporter of ladies golf, the Northern India in particular, also announced that from this day any Northern India Champion shooting a sub-par score for the four days would receive from the sponsors, starting with irina, a set of golf clubs of her choice! To the cheers of those attending the Prize giving Function mar Shriram also committed himself to sponsoring the Ladies Northern India "as long as they want us" and also to sponsoring a ladies professional tour if and when it came into being.
The Siel Junior Girls trophy was won by Vaishavi Sinha with a newcomer to ladies golf, 13 year old Sharmilla Nicollet as Runner-up. Sharmilla also won the Nett Prize for the Juniors and Sub-juniors and the best gross for the sub-juniors so she will be soon up on the leader boards. The sponsors also sponsored the "Babies" Tournament of 36 holes on the Peacock Course this year, with youngster Shreya Ghei winning the Gross event and the Nett event!
Although the golf on the final day of the Championship was not of the standard of the past three days-pressure can never be discounted in the game of games-this Northern India with its record making scores by Irina, its largest ever Championship entry, the standard of golf displayed by the ever burgeoning number of Juniors who will be making their mark more and more, and the scores registered by the top players is a watershed in ladies golf and the future seems brighter than it has been for some years.
Ms.Irina Brar on her achievement on the recently concluded northern India ladies golf with a 12-under par has been awarded sugar equal to her weight by Mawana Sugar along with a golf set of her choice.
Leading scores: 282 Irina Brar, 67,70,70,75); 295 Anjali Chopra (71,75,73,76); 300 Vaishavi Sinha (75,73,78,74); 303 Parnita Garewal (73,75,78,77)305 Shruti Khanna, Mayali Talwar ;308 Vandana Agarwal;312 Sharmilla Nicollet; 314 Pragya Misra, Bhavna Shetty.
