Visakhapatnam, Sep 23 (PTI) Sri Lankan N Thangaraja fired a dream final round of six-under 66, the day's best score, to outplay all his rivals at the inaugural Vizag Open here on Saturday, ending an agonising five-year long wait for his fourth PGTI title.

Colombo-based Thangaraja (71-73-70-66), who was overnight tied ninth and trailing by a massive seven shots, literally pulled a rabbit out of the hat to overcome that huge deficit. His sensational and error-free last round saw the Lankan triumphing by one stroke at a total of eight-under 280 at the East Point Golf Club (EPGC).

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Chandigarh's Akshay Sharma (67-68-73-73) finished runner-up at seven-under 281 after a fourth round of 73.

The quartet of Samarth Dwivedi (68), Om Prakash Chouhan (69), Saarthak Chhibber (70) and Harendra Gupta (69), took the tied third place at six-under 282.

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Thanga, as he is popularly known, bagged the winning cheque worth Rs. 15,00,000 to take a giant stride from 24th to sixth position in the PGTI Rankings and become the 11th winner on the PGTI this season in as many events.

It was also his overall sixth professional win (with two wins coming on the Sri Lankan Tour). The 42-year-old ever-smiling Thanga will now be heading to Hangzhou, China, to represent his country at the Asian Games.

Thangaraja, playing three groups ahead of the leader group, made an early charge with long birdie conversions on the second and fourth holes and a great approach to set up a tap-in birdie on the fifth. He added another birdie on the par-5 seventh after finding the green in two shots.

After making the turn at four-under for the day, Thanga made further inroads on the back-nine.

His tee shot on the par-3 11th lipped out of the hole but handed him a birdie and an accurate approach on the 15th left

him a three-footer for his sixth and last birdie of the day.

Thanga's 66 proved good enough for the top prize as some of the other leading contenders such as Akshay Sharma (73), Sunhit Bishnoi (76), Trishul Chinnappa (74) and Shivendra Singh Sisodia (75), struggled with their games on Saturday, shooting over-par scores and blowing away their chances.

Round three leader Sunhit finished seventh at five-under 283 while Trishul and Shivendra were further two shots back in tied eighth.

Akshay's second-place finish lifted him from 39th to 15th place in PGTI's money list.

Om Prakash Chouhan of Mhow who finished tied third at Vizag continues to lead the PGTI Rankings with season's earnings of Rs. 68,03,042.

Visakhapatnam's Rahman Mehboob Shorif ended the week in tied 49th place at 12-over 300.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)