Hero Indian Open defending champion and 54-hole leader Eugenio Chacarra of Spain in contemplative mode at the DLF Golf and Country Club in Gurgaon on Saturday. Image courtesy HIO.
By Rahul Banerji
Eugenio Chacarra will take a four-shot advantage into the final day of his title defence at the Hero Indian Open in Gurgaon with a steady penultimate round.
On Moving Day of the $2.55 million event, the 26-year-old Spaniard returned a 2 under 70, one of only 12 sub-par cards at the testing DLF Golf and Country Club to total 10 under 206.
Sharing second place on 6 under 210 were South African M.J. Daffue (71-67-72) and England’s Alex Fitzpatrick (70-68-72), brother of 2022 US Open winner Matthew with Freddy Schott of Germany and Scotsman David Law tied for fourth on 5 under 211.
Englishman Jack Senior had the day’s best card, a 5 under 67 that saw him climb into the top 10 ahead of Sunday’s closing 18 holes.
Former DP World PGTI Order of Merit champion Om Prakash Chouhan (73-71-73) led the three Indians to make the cut, sharing 20th place on 1 over 217 along with nine others including Thailand’s Kiradech Aphibarnrat.
Bangalore teenager Manoj S. (76-70-76) endured a difficult day to be tied for 54th but this will be a steep learning curve for the teenager, while Kshitij Naved Kaul was down in 63rd.
In the morning, the 30 golfers who needed to complete round two resumed play at 7:15 am with Kaul (T57) among them, before a birdie and an eagle in the four remaining holes helped him make the cut in dramatic fashion.
Grinding away
“My tee shots were good but my putting was not as sharp as it was in round two,” Chouhan said later.
“I also hit fewer greens in regulation today. I’ll take heart from the fact that I kept coming back with birdies every time I dropped shots and am looking forward to a much better day tomorrow.”
This edition of the National Open, though, is rapidly turning into another Chacarra (67-69-70) fairytale.
The 2025 win, playing on a sponsor’s exemption, remains his only DP World Tour title. It has also been an indifferent 2026 so far with three missed cuts and a best of tied 15th at the season-opening Dubai Invitational in January.
Clearly, the DLF course seems to bring out the best in the defending champion who mixed five birdies with three dropped shots on Saturday.
“We know how this course gets over the weekends, it’s a lot of patience. I missed a couple of short ones in one, in three, and I maintained my patience.
“At four I hit a great tee shot and straight on the divot. It was tough. I think I played really well, I handle myself very well. Like I said, this course is just trying to plug along and everything can happen.
“You know at the end of the day everyone’s going to make bogeys, everyone is going to have some hard bounces or bad kicks.
No guarantees
“But there’s still a lot of golf to play and around the course everything can happen.
“I had a good Moving Day. It was tough but like I said there is a lot of lot of golf left. On this course four shots seems like nothing, so I just need to keep going on hopefully and play a good round of golf and see what happens.”
Added Daffue, winenr of the DP World PGTI Open last week, “This golf course is monster for me. It’s starting to get to a point where you have to be very precise on where you leave yourself.
“The greens are just too fast to be able to get close to the hole.
“Overall I played better golf than a level par. I didn’t make much putts even though I felt like I was rolling it well.
“Tomorrow is going to be obviously a stern test. So, we go tonight and figure out how we can get two or three (strokes) better tomorrow.
For Fitzpatrick, who returned a with 72, it was a hard day’s work.
“I’m sure you probably heard it from a lot of people and social media that the course is a grind. So, happy with the way I fought but yeah, ready for bed already.
“Tomorrow, I’ll just keep grinding away. It’s really hard, there’s not much more to say about it. But, I put myself in a good position into tomorrow.”
Also read: Chacarra holds clubhouse lead as Jarvis climbs into contention
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