Mukesh, Chiragh are joint leaders

Gurgaon: Mukesh Kumar of Mhow and Delhi`s Chiragh Kumar carded four-under 68 and even-par 72

respectively to emerge as joint leaders after round three of the PGTI Players Championship here on Thursday. The two are tied with a three-day total of nine-under 207 at the Golden Greens Golf & Country Club here. Two strokes adrift of the leaders is R Srinivas (71) of Bangalore at the third place with an aggregate of seven-under 209. Mukesh Kumar, the winner of the maximum number of titles on the Aircel PGTI, picked up birdies on the first, second, third and fifth holes and seemed to be on course for the sole lead when he sank another birdie on the 11th to go five-under for the day. However, a bogey on the 14th slowed him down a bit as he could manage only one more birdie for the day which came on the 16th. The 2008 Aircel PGTI Order of Merit champion finally ended the day by dropping a bogey on the 18th where he missed a sitter of a putt for par as the rain made life difficult for the professionals towards the end of the round. "I had a fantastic start today with four birdies on the first five holes. At that stage I thought that I will play for pars for the rest of the round and also look to grab any birdie opportunity wherever possible," Mukesh said. But my poor hitting and iron-play let me down on the back nine as I pulled a lot of shots to the left. I was also a little careless on the back nine since I missed a two-footer for par on the 18th. "Nonetheless, I`m quite confident about my game at the moment and like always will look to play with a positive mindset in the final round." Chiragh Kumar was level par at the turn having made two birdies and bogeys each. He then birdied the 10th and 12th to stay ahead of Mukesh. However, a bogey-bogey finish brought him back to level par for the day. "I played really well through the day and was two under till the 16th hole. But I just lost my momentum on the last two holes when it started raining heavily. I didn`t hit it as good as the previous two rounds.” "However, I`m satisfied with today`s performance as it has kept me on top of the leaderboard and given me a great launch-pad for the final round," said Chiragh, the winner of the amateur title at the 2006 Indian Open. Ashok Kumar and Vinod Kumar share fourth place at four under 212. PTI