Firoz Ali fires away to career-best triumph

This morning, the pressure showed, as Firoz, discarding his normal game played safe. Instead of using a three wood for the first tee, he was using two iron. When play had ended on Day Three, Dean Wilson was on fire, with four under for his last four holes. This morning, it was Scott Rowe who turned on the heat. He had two birdies on the first two and barely missed a third and Firoz managed only pars. Wilson birdied the third. Theleaderboard showed Firoz 12 under and the other two at 10 under.

On the fourth, a tense Firoz went into the rough but was lucky to get a club length’s relief. But he was disturbed when his caddie stepped in playing partner’s putting line — Firoz apologised on his behalf. The net result: Firoz dropped a stroke and Wilson was just one behind.

The turning point came on the sixth. Firoz went into the left bunker off the tee, but managed to get to the green with the third. Wilson missed a four-foot putt for par and dropped a stroke. Firoz sunk a 10-foot downhill putt for par. “It was a difficult putt, but that gave me confidence,” said Firoz.

The seventh was a nightmare but it possibly decided the title. Firoz went into the tank with his tee shot, came out well and then chipped from 15-feet only to see it stop one foot short. Bogey for Firoz. Wilson went behind a tree from the tee, hit into the wall to get the ball to rebound onto the fairway and with a good chip managed to escape with a bogey. Roweescaped the tank but overshot the green and ended with a double bogey. Rowe, who had played 50 holes without a bogey had finally dropped a stroke. But now he was out of contention.

Final scores: 1 Firoz Ali (Ind) (69, 68, 67, 70), 274; Dean Wilson (US) (71, 67, 69, 72) 279; 3. Choi Kyoung Ju (Kor) (71, 69, 69, 71) 280; 4-5 Rick Todd (US) (74, 72, 64, 71) and Chung Joon (Kor) (72, 72, 67, 70) 281; 6-7 Scott Rowe (US) (73, 68, 67, 74) and Edward Fryatt (Eng) (71, 70, 71, 70) 282; 8-9 Nam Young Woo (Kor) (69, 71, 70, 73) and Philip Jonas (70, 70, 72, 71) 283; 10. Rob Moss (US) (72, 69, 70, 73) 284; 11. Hiroshi Ueda (Jpn) (68, 74, 68, 75) and Jim Rutledge (Can) (72, 73, 73, 68) 285; 13-19 Clay Devers (US) (72, 73, 69, 72), Eric Meeks (US) (73, 69, 71, 73), Stephan Lidskog (Swe) (71, 70, 73, 72); Jeff Bloom (US) (69, 72, 73, 72); Carlos Espinosa (Mex) (70, 73, 73, 70); Charlie Wi (Kor) (72, 69, 74, 71); Tim Straub (US) (67, 70, 74, 75) 286; 20-21 Jerry Smith (US) (69, 74, 69, 75), Ian Leggat (Can) (72,70, 72, 73) 287; 22-30 Leith Wastle (Aus), Christian Pena (US), David Morland (Can), Juan Nutt (Ven), Gustavo Rojas (Arg); Arjun Singh (Ind-71, 72, 72, 73), Ted Purdy (US), Shaun Michael (US) and Arjun Atwal (Ind-69, 71, 76, 72) 288.

Other Indians: Tied 31st 289: Shiv Prakash (75, 71, 70, 73); Tied 47th 293: Basad Ali (73, 73, 72, 75); Tied 60th 299: Amritinder Singh (72, 71, 80, 76), Tied 62nd 300: Mohammed Islam (73, 74, 76, 77)