Chandigarh Golf League: Mulligans beat defending champions Raptors 7-0

Chandigarh, October 17

The Mulligans made a thumping 7-0 win over defending champions Canam Raptors in the pre-quarterfinals of the Chandigarh Golf League at the Chandigarh Golf Club. They progressed to the quarterfinals as did Soaring Eagles, who pipped the Partee Panthers 4-3.

Swinging Samurai joined the two teams with a 4-3 win of their own against Sleepy Owl Chargers with Punjab Aces making it through by beating the spirited Pirates of the Greens 4.5-2.5. The four teams will join top seeds Captain’s 18, Fairway Comets, Homeland Chandigarh Gladiators & the Hunting Hawks for a place in the semifinals.

The Mulligans made strides from the word go and were in the lead in almost all games throughout the match. The Raptors never got a look in as Bismad Singh and Manan Mahajan won the singles games easily 5&4 and 3&2 respectively. The fourball pairs followed with skipper Gauhar Pruthi and Ashwinder Singh winning 4&2 and Amrinder Singh-Jaskeerat Matharoo pair winning 4&3 to fly past the mark. The other pairs brought it home without damage to make them the first team ever to effect a whitewash in the knockout stages of CGL. Eagles, who had started poorly and just about made it to the knockouts played out a close match which could have gone either way. Five of the seven games went to the wire with the Eagles holding their nerve to cross the finish line. Udey Brar played a great shot under the pump to win his singles game 2 Up for the Eagles, while Rabiya Gill got better of three-time Club Champion Raghav Bhandari to split the points. Bhavkaran Singh & Atul Sehgal got home easily with a 5&4 win with Amandeep Bhaika & Jaspreet Sokhi winning 3&2. Two games were halved while the difference maker was the MP Singh-Akshay Verma pair winning their game 1 Up to put their team through.

Samurai produced the goods in crunch moments as they won with their plan to take the games deep and strike at the right moments. After Col H Panging had given the Chargers a lead with 4&2 win, the Samurai got themselves in the right gears as Col AD Singh won his singles 2&1 while BS Gill & Ramnik Singh Tiwana won 3&2. KPS Bhatti & Col Raju Walia won 4&3 to close the match with one game to play. In the final pre-quarterfinal, skipper Mivaan Singh won his game 6&4 to point the first point on the board for Punjab Aces. Rao Birender Singh had to use all his experience on the final three holes to pip Col VS Panag on the final hole after being held close for most of the game. The Pirates had led in the early parts of the match but the Aces found a way back into the games with Balpreet Ghuman & Shiv Singh winning the anchor game 3&2 after Avirat Sundra & Brig Kishore Malhotra had put up the point for the Pirates.