Himmat drops to ninth, Digvijay in top-10 in Manila

Manila: On a very tough scoring day, Himmat Rai dropped down the leader board with a nightmarish five-over 77 and fellow Indian Digvijay Singh lost his rhythm towards the end and were both placed ninth after the third round of the ICTSI Philippine Open on Saturday.

Berry Henson (71) of the United States battled through dehydration in the last four holes to take the third round lead at six-under 210. Himmat, the joint leader overnight had two birdies, five bogeys and a double bogey in 77 at one-under 215. Sujjan Singh (74) improved to 27th despite an over par round, Chiragh Kumar (79) was 51st and Vikrant Chopra (76) and Manav Jaini (78) were tied 55th. Digvijay, seemed well poised for a shot at the top after a outgoing flawless 33. He was five-under through 13 holes and inside top-3 when he suddenly dropped four bogeys in a row from 14th to 17th and plummeted to ninth after a round of 73 that at one stage looked closer to a 66 or 67. "Overall I did the same things but missed a few of the fairways and judged the wind wrongly. I need to get back into the rhythm of when I was playing well and try to play a solid round."I`m going to try to put the ball in play and give myself a good look at the putts," said Himmat, who was fifth last week at the Asian Development Tour event, the Impian Classic. Henson, an Asian Tour rookie, posted a one-under-par 71 in tough scoring conditions where only nine players broke par at the Wack Wack Golf and Country Club. Jbe Kruger of South Africa, who finished second on three occasions last year, and local hope Jay Bayron were two strokes back after shooting 73 and 74 respectively for a 212 total in the USD 300,000 event.Thai trio Pariya Junhasavasdikul, Chapchai Nirat and Prom Meesawat shared fourth place with Filipino Mars Pucay and 49-year-old Wang Ter-chang of Chinese Taipei on matching 214s. PTI