Two birdies in the last four holes of the third round kept Shiv Kapur's hopes alive of securing his first Top-10 finish of the year at the ISPS HANDA Perth International, here today.
Kapur, who began the week with a stunning 66 has since shot 73-71 in the next two rounds. At six-under 206, he is Tied-20th, but 11 shots behind the leader, Louis Oosthuizen who takes a three shot lead into the final round.
Looking unstoppable at Lake Karrinyup Country Club, Oosthuizen was 7-under the card through 15 holes and had stretched his lead out to five shots. However back-to-back bogeys saw him come back to the field, setting up the final round for a dramatic finish.
Himmat Rai (73) with three birdies, two bogeys and a double was Tied 45th, while Gaganjeet Bhullar (71), who had an eagle at second, a double bogey, two other bogeys and three birdies, was Tied 54th. Chiragh Kumar (74) was Tied 63rd.
Kapur, who has a troublesome shoulder that flared up before the first round and has still not healed said: "It has been an up and down day again. I got off to a good start. But that stretch from six to11 seemed to get me again. I didn't really hit any poor shots. I hit it into the greenside bunker on seven and ended up making bogey there and on 11, I three-putted. So that stretch of four to five holes was frustrating."
"But you just got to hang in there like I did yesterday and post a good score to move up the leaderboard. It has been that kind of week. The first day was flawless and the last two days, I made too many mistakes although the birdies are still in there.
"The encouraging thing out of all these is that I'm hitting lots of good shots. Some of the bogeys I made were either bad judgment or just one or two bad swings. My pace on the greens was off a little as they felt a little slower to me today. I'm just going to work on that and hopefully come out with a hot putter like I did the first day.
"I've put myself too far back to have a realistic chance of winning but as competitors, you want to finish as high up as you can," he added.
Overnight leader Peter Uihlein of the United States slipped one spot down to second place with France's Romain Wattel after he signed for a 71 while local hopefuls Jason Scrivener (205) and Brett Rumford (206) are in fourth and fifth place respectively.
A shot further back and rounding out the top-10 are Marcus Fraser (AUS), Mikko Korhonen (FIN), Richard Lee (CAN), Mardan Mamat (SIN) and Alexander Levy (FRA).
