With long putt,Rai ends longer wait

“I knew it for the last three-and-a-half days that it was a win for me to take. And it is very special for me considering the conditions in which it came — bad light could have suspended play and others were playing so well,” Rai told The Indian Express from Singapore.

Though he was in joint lead for two consecutive days,Rai seemed to have thrown it away with a double bogey on the 13th hole to fall four stroke off the pace. But he spectacularly saved a par from the bunker on the next and birdied the 16th and 17th to force a play-off.

“After the double bogey,I hadn’t looked up the leaderboard. In my mind I was playing for a fourth or fifth-place finish,but to my surprise when I finished,I realised I had forced a play-off,” said Rai,who aggregated nine-under 280 (68-66-66-71) at the Orchid Country Club.

What followed was the tour’s first five-way play-off that included Filipino Elmer Salvador,Dutchman Guido Van Der Valk,South African Tjaart Van Der Walt,Brazilian Adilson Da Silva and Rai.

As the players lined up at the 18th tee,little did they know that it would turn out to be a battle of attrition to be played out over and over again — six times eventually. With the light fast fading,Selvador and Rai were the last two men standing. Though he had the chance to do the same on the fifth playoff hole,the Indian eventually sank a massive 25-footer for birdie on the sixth additional hole to win the $300,000 event.

The pent-up frustration of all those close finishes — he pushed KJ Choi at the Iskandar Johor Open last year and missed on a title in May on the Developmental Tour — suddenly found a vent as the DLF Golf and Country Club pro Rai let out primal roar and threw his visor cap on the course.

“Definitely a long one but it was also the sweetest putt of my life and one I will remember for the rest of my career,” he said.