November 6: India’s Karandeep Kochhar is playing for the 13th week in the last 14, but showed no signs of weariness as he shot the lowest round for the second successive day and opened a two-shot lead after Thursday’s third round of the US$125,000 Egypt Golf Series – Red Sea Open.

At Sokhna Golf Club, Kochhar, who also made a first competitive hole-in-one in the opening round, added a seven-under par 65 to move to 17-under total.

Chasing Kochhar, as well as history, was Laos’ Thammasack Bouahom (67), as he will try and become the first player from his country to win an international professional title.

Thailand’s Weerawish Narkprachar shot his second successive round of 67 to move to solo third place at 14-under, while Sweden’s Calle Strandberg (71), the overnight leader, slipped to fourth place at 204 total.

Three players – Pakistan’s Aadam Syed (66), England’s Matt Killen (66) and Korea’s Minhyeok Yang (69) – were tied fifth at 11-under.

The 26-year-old Kochhar has three wins on the domestic PGTI Tour, but is yet to record his first win in an international tournament. That can all change after Friday’s final round as he continued to make plenty of birdies on the golf course with his naturally aggressive style of golf.

Weerawish Narkprachar of Thailand. Picture by ADT

“Obviously, a great day for me today, seven-under par. Just again, I had the same mindset as yesterday, which was to stay aggressive throughout, try and give myself as many chances as possible. As I said yesterday, it’s not easy to hold putts as the greens become quite bumpy towards afternoon,” said Kochhar, who made eight birdies and a solitary bogey on the par-four 12th hole.

“That’s what I did. I did a great job of staying in the moment and not getting too ahead of myself. A two-shot lead is nice, but still a lot of work to do over 18 holes. Just want to have the same attitude that I have had the last three days, and continue to play well.

“The key has been to make stress-free pars because it can get a bit gusty here. My irons have been good, and my driver has also been good. That just decreases the amount of pressure that I have when I get to the putting green. Hopefully, I can do all that tomorrow as well.

“A win would be very special. I have made a conscious decision to skip a few Asian Tour events and play on the ADT, because I want to graduate and get back my card on the main Tour.”

Thammasack, who is the only professional golfer from Laos apart from his twin brother Thammalack, has previously finished third three times on the ADT in the past two years.

On Thursday, he was meandering along at one-under after 10 holes, but caught fire after that as he made a birdie on the 11th, and then three in a row from the 13th to the 15th holes.

“I am already feeling nervous and excited about tomorrow,” said Thammasack, who turned 28 in August. “I can’t wait to get out of there tomorrow.

“Today was a bit up and down. Made a lot of birdies, putted well, but made a couple of mistakes around the greens.

“The three straight birdies on the back nine got me going. Started with the par-five, where I got quite lucky with the drive. It didn’t go in the water. Hit a great second shot and a really good chip shot for a tap-in birdie, and had a tap-in birdie on the 14th as well as I nearly holed my second shot for an eagle.”

The US$125,000 Egypt Golf Series – Red Sea Open is the second successive week the Asian Development Tour is in Egypt after last week’s Egyptian Open.