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Calcutta: Sanjeev Mehra pulled off his second straight upset with a 3 & 2 win over thrice Sri Lankan amateur Open winner Simarjeet Singh at the Goodricke Eastern India amateur championship at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club on Tuesday. The event is the second leg of the Eastern Swing on the Royal Challenge Indian Golf Tour.

In the most exciting contest of the day, Keshav Misra recorded a win over Pankaj Sethi on the 23rd hole to cruise into a quarter final clash with Akshay Butta.

HS Kang knocked out top-seed Ranjit Singh with a 4 & 2 win. At the half way stage Kang was one up and never relinquished his lead after that. Another closely contested match was between Joseph Chakola and Amardip Sinh Malik in which the former prevailed one-up. Teenager Akshay Butta who sent the seasoned Manav Das to the cleaners on Monday moved into the quarter finals along with Mehra and six others courtesy a 2 & 1 victory over Girish Virk.

Mehra played the waiting game with Simarjeet, who has only himself to blame for the defeat with bogeys on the third, seventh and ninth. Sanjeev who bogeyed fewer holes, led the contest one-up after nine. Thereafter Mehra didn’t let up despite a double bogey on the 14th and Simar crumbled under the pressure.

If you haven’t already heard, Vijay Singh was unanimously selected by his peers as the 2004 U.S. PGA Tour’s Player of the Year, thus ending Tiger Wood’s five-year reign by winning nine tournaments.

In the process, Singh accumulated a record $10,905,166 in official earnings, and for those who are interested, that worked out to an average of $376,040 per start. He also had 18 top-10 finishes and a stroke average of 68.84.

Other tidbits regarding Singh’s remarkable year:

# Singh found his most trouble this season at Glen Abbey Golf Club’s par-4 11th hole. For the week at the Bell Canadian Open, a tournament he ultimately won, his scorecard on No. 11 looked like this: 7-5-7-4.

# His only missed cut came at the Buick Invitational.

# He twice had quadruple bogeys. He took at 9 on the par-5 sixth hole at Doral Resort and Spa’s Blue Course in the final round of the Ford Championship at Doral and he had a 7 on the par-3 17th hole in the final round of the EDS Byron Nelson Championship.

# His 17 eagles tied Geoff Ogilvy for the most on Tour.

# The Ford Championship at Doral was also the tournament where Singh had two eagles in his four rounds.

# He had 484 birdies to lead the PGA Tour. That was 64 more than Ted Purdy, who was second with 420.

# Of his 110 rounds, Singh played 14 bogey-free.

# His 80 sub-par rounds were 15 more than his closest competitor, Jerry Kelly.

# Seventeen times Singh had at least three birdies in a row. His best streak came during the second round of the Mercedes Championship, where he recorded seven consecutive birdies beginning on the 12th hole.

# Beginning with the fourth hole in the first round of the Buick Open, a tournament he won by a stroke, Singh didn’t record a bogey for 68 consecutive holes. During that span he had 22 birdies, one eagle and 45 pars. His streak ended Sunday on the 18th hole.

A truly fantastic year to be sure, and it is difficult to imagine that his extraordinary feat of nine victories in one year could ever be repeated, but then again…

There were birdies as well as bogeys for India’s ‘Big Three’ on the international scene in 2004, which also saw emergence of a new breed in youngsters like Rahil Gangjee and Ashok Kumar.

Jyoti Randhawa, Arjun Atwal and Jeev Milkha Singh may not have enjoyed great success but they ensured once again that India continued to stir the consciousness of the world.

The highlight of the year was Randhawa breaking his title drought since September 2003 with a victory in the season-ending Volvo Masters in Kuala Lumpur.

Order of merit

When the 32-year-old pro sank a 15-foot birdie on the second playoff hole, he not only pocketed $99,000 but also leapfrogged to the second place in the Asian Order of Merit after just seven events.

If the year ended on a bright note, the start was no let-down either with unheralded rookie Rahil Gangjee winning his first Asian Tour title after holding his nerve to clinch the inaugural Volkswagen Masters in Beijing, China, in a sudden-death play-off.

The 25-year-old showed remarkable poise at Pine Valley Golf Club to emerge victorious after a pulsating final round, which saw at least seven players in with a chance of winning the $300,000 event.

It was indeed a remarkable win for the youngster who had turned pro in 2001 after establishing himself as the top amateur of the country.

There were birdies as well as bogeys for India’s ‘big three’ on the international scene in 2004 which also saw emergence of a new breed in youngsters like Rahil Gangjee and Ashok Kumar.

Jyoti Randhawa, Arjun Atwal and Jeev Milkha Singh may not have enjoyed great success but they ensured once again that India continued to stir the consciousness of the world. The highlight of the year was Randhawa breaking his title drought — he was winless since September 2003 — with a victory in the season-ending Volvo Masters in Kuala Lumpur.

When the 32-year-old pro sank a 15-foot birdie on the second play-off hole, he not only pocketed $ 99,000 but also leapfrogged to the second place in the Asian Order of Merit after just seven events, some of which did see him come tantalisingly close to the title.

If the year ended on a bright note, the start was no let-down either with unheralded rookie Rahil Gangjee winning his first Asian Tour title after holding his nerve to clinch the inaugural Volkswagen Masters in Beijing, in a sudden-death play-off.

The 25-year-old showed remarkable poise at Pine Valley Golf Club to emerge victorious after a pulsating final round which saw at least seven players in with a chance of winning the $ 300,000 event.

It was indeed a remarkable win for the youngster who had turned pro in 2001 after establishing himself as the top amateur of the country.

Atwal, who clearly overshadowed others in the preceding year after he became the first Indian to qualify for the prestigious USPGA Tour, was a shade subdued after he failed to repeat the feat this time when he finished joint 77th in the gruelling 108-hole annual qualifying tournament, played at La Quinta in California.

Atwal would have finished higher but for a disastrous fifth round which undermined his overall card. However, Atwal managed, just by a stroke, to finish high enough to get full exemption on the nation-wide tour, the next rung to the PGA Tour.

Also, by finishing in the top 150 on the PGA Tour in 2004, Atwal guaranteed himself a minimum of 18 PGA events next year. It also meant he only had to play in the last of the three stages on the qualifying tournament.

So with the disappointment came the hope that the Calcutta pro would make the most of the nationwide tour which offers high-quality competition and lucrative prize money besides opening the doors to PGA avenues.

For Jeev, the year was yet another of toil and little success, raising concerns about his best being behind him.

Jeev, who had made history by qualifying for the US Open, the toughest major in the world in 2002, struggled clearly before showing signs of vintage form in the Okinawa Open, which incidentally is the first event of the 2005 season, to promise of better things to come.

The domestic tour, which got a shot in the arm with the Sahara group extending its support to it through Amby Valley, was dominated by 23-year-old Ashok Kumar.

Ashok’s emergence led credence to the belief that Indian golf would be in safe hands once the big three relinquish their places because not only did he impress in the PGAI Tour, he also made a mark on the Asian Tour, the highlight being a joint fifth finish at the Vietnam Open earlier this month