‘It’s a gold lost, not silver won’

India golfer Aditi Ashok with her silver medal in Hangzhou yesterday. Pic/PTI

The heat at the West Lake International Golf Course on Sunday morning was mild and nowhere even close to causing a meltdown like the one India's Aditi Ashok suffered in the women's individual event.

Yubol clinches gold

After a brilliant initial three rounds just 24 hours earlier with an inspirational 11-under 61 and a seven-shot lead in the forefront of the leaderboard, Aditi, 25, struggled in the final round and slipped to second spot, carding 17-under 271 (67-66-61-77), as Thailand's Arpichaya Yubol, 19-under 269 (67-65-69-68), snatched the gold right under her nose. Korea's Hyunjo Yoo took bronze with 16-under 272 (68-73-66-65).

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Aditi still made history however, by becoming the first Indian woman to clinch a golf medal at the Asian Games.

The previous six medals (three gold, three silver) won by India at the quadrennial competition were all by male golfers.

‘Shot my worst round'

Aditi was happy about her historic medal-winning feat, but couldn't get over her poor show on the day. "I shot my career-best round yesterday and then shot my worst round of the year today," a visibly disappointed Aditi said.

At the 16th hole, she double-bogeyed and hit the water, drowning her gold medal. "At 16, I felt I was in it. It was just one or two shots in the lead, but then that one shot threw me out of it. When you hit the water, there's no way of coming back from it. That was definitely where it unravelled. I missed a lot of fairways too," said Aditi, who finished with an impressive fourth place at the 2016 Rio Olympics. "The way the mind works is that when you're behind, you're always thinking of the good stuff you can do to catch up. But when you're leading, I don't know if it's good or not, but the mind looks at what can go wrong. This is definitely a gold lost for me rather than a silver won," she concluded.