At one point during the final round, Diksha stood just one shot behind the leader in Northern Ireland
Diksha Dagar followed up her stellar 21st place finish at the Women’s (British) Open last week with a strong final round 67 at the ISPS Handa World Invitational in Northern Ireland after solid rounds of 71-74-72 to finish in a tie for sixth, in this unique mixed tournament played simultaneously for men and women with a US$1.5 mn purse each.
The event marks an important milestone where the men’s and women’s purses are equal, a strong move towards reducing the huge gap in prize money between the mens’ and womens’ tours.
The tournament is tri-sanctioned by the LPGA, LET and the European Tour and includes a cut after 36 holes for the low 60 to 70 players, followed by a 54-hole cut to narrow the field down to the top 40, separately for men and women.
Diksha’s 5-under 284 marks her first top 10 finish in an LPGA sanctioned event. She finished only three strokes short of the three-way playoff involving Alexa Pano, Esther Henseleit & Gabriella Cowley. Pano, who turned 19 on Sunday, won the event on the third playoff hole to give herself a great birthday present.
Diksha earned US$ 47,764 (₹39.7 lacs) for her T6 finish.
On the men’s side of the European Tour event, Manu Gandas shot 66-73-70-72 (even-par 281) to finish T-20th. Gandas’s opening round of 66 put him in a tie for second but he couldn’t break 70 again. Stll, the result is his best finish on the DP World Tour this year but he lies at 175th in the Race to Dubai Rankings and will have to produce some stellar performances to have any chance of retaining his playing rights in Europe next year, having entered the 2023 European tour by virtue of topping the PGTI Order of Merit in 2022.
Credits:-
Photo – LPGA