Nishna Patel was fine for the first seven holes before she ran into a disastrous stretch of bogeys and ended the third day at 5-over in the Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific Championship on the Waterside course at the Siam Country Club.
The 16-year-old Nishna, who is the only Indian to make the cut from the six who came here, shot 72-71 on the first two days. With 77 on the third, she is 4-over and tied 44th.
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There was a four-way lead at the top as the defending champion and halfway leader Mizuki Hashimoto (77), dropped six strokes in the last six holes with four bogeys and a double. Hashimoto crashed from overnight 9-under to 4-under is now tied ninth.
There were four players sharing the lead at 8-under. The four included two locals, the highly acclaimed 38th world ranked Natthakritta Vongtaveelap, who won the Thailand Amateurs two weeks ago, and a little-known 16-year-old Suvichaya Vinijchaitham. Of the other two, there was Ting-Hsuan Huang, another 16-year-old from Chinese Taipei and a debutant at WAAP, while the fourth was Korea’s Lim Jiyoo, once ranked as high as fifth in the world, but now 13th.
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Nishna, with brother Ronav as the caddie, began well with five pars before her first birdie. After a par on seventh, her problems began. Nishna bogeyed eighth, ninth and 10th and parred the 11th. Again, in the last seven holes she had four more bogeys and just one birdie on the Par-4 15th.
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Natthakritta was the joint runner-up last year, and she closed strongly with birdies on 17 and 18 for a 68 that put her at 8-under for 54 holes.
Fellow Thai, Suvichaya, ranked 487th in the world, was two-under for front nine. She also birdied the 10th and parred the last eight for a 69 and 8-under total.
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Huang, two-under for the front nine, was even for the back nine, while Lim, two-over after bogeys on eighth and ninth, birdied 13th and 17th for 72 for a share of the lead.
