August 20, 2016: The wind was up in Rio and the gusts took the sails out of Aditi Ashok on a difficult day at the Reserva de Marapendi Golf Course. As the first edition of Olympic golf inched toward the finish line, Aditi was separated from the top 10 by a brutally painful 79 on Friday. Inbee Park continued to lead the women at 11-under 202, increasing her cushion to two shots over Lydia Ko and Gerina Piller.
Aditi will be wiser for her experience in the third round, but going through the process yesterday must have been enormously painful for the young girl. The conditions were far from conducive for golf, with the swirling winds and gusty conditions making control nearly impossible at times.
Aditi slipped from inside the top 10 to T31 at the end of the third round. The day began with a par at the first, but she made five again at the second hole to concede her first shot of the day.
Aditi put her card back at even with a birdie at the par-5 fifth hole but a bogey at the seventh meant that she turned in 36 shots, one more than the design score of the beautiful Olympic course.
Her hopes were dented severely when she surrendered a hat-trick of bogeys from the 11th hole. Aditi’s situation worsened when she suffered double bogeys at 15th and 18th holes, ending the day at 2-over 215.
After a pair of 68s gave her a rousing six under start to her Olympic debut, this was a round that snatched away any hopes of a medal finish for the young Indian golfer.
The 18 year old Bengaluru girl will now play for pride on Saturday. She will look to post a good score to try and recover to somewhere inside the top 20.
But conditions are expected to be similar again for the fourth round, forcing the organisers to advance the tee times and use both the first and tenth tees for the start on Saturday.
