Golfer Aditi Ashok misses medal by a whisker at Tokyo Olympics 2020

It was a heartbreaking end to Aditi’s campaign considering she started the day at 2nd. But it was nonetheless a major improvement as she had finished tied 41st in the 2016 edition where golf made a comeback to the Olympics.

In the final round, she fired five birdies — on the 5th, 6th, 8th, 13th and 14th holes — against two bogeys on the 9th and 11th.

Overnight leader and world number one Nelly Korda clinched the gold medal with a 2-under 69 that left her 17-under overall and a shot ahead of Japan’s Mone Inami (65) and New Zealand’s Lydia Ko (65).

Aditi was in medal contention for a major part of the day but the two bogeys pulled her back while Ko surged ahead with a sensational nine birdies against just three dropped shots in her final round.

This is Aditi’s second Olympic appearance. She had finished tied 41st in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro edition.

The final round of the women’s Tokyo Olympics golf tournament resumed Saturday with the leaders having two holes to complete after a 49-minute interruption because of a passing thunderstorm.

Play restarted at 1:15 pm (0415 GMT), with American world number one Nelly Korda leading on 17-under par, one shot ahead of Japan’s Mone Inami, with India’s Aditi Ashok and Lydia Ko of New Zealand tied for third a stroke further back.

The final group of Korda, Ashok and Ko had all just played their tee shots at the driveable par-four 17th when play was suspended at 12:26 pm.

Aditi said since she played only a few tournaments in May-June and also got infected by the coronavirus, has probably lost distance off the tee.

Yet her short game has helped her.

“I didn’t really have my best, especially on the long holes with the long approaches where I wasn’t as consistent. So, yeah, definitely it was a good day and I did not make as many bogeys as I could have,” she said.

“My putting wasn’t as good today as the first two days. So those couple par putts that were like the one on 12 and the one on 18, helped because I knew my putting wasn’t that good today compared to the first two.”

Aditi said she recoeverd from COVID-19 but it did affect her health

“It took a little bit of strength out of me. I was never this short. I was always short but not like 50 behind Nelly and 50 behind Nanna. But apart from the distance this year has been kind of the best I’ve had with my short game.”

Aditi was also candid about the following golf back home.

“Nobody really follows golf as much. It’s not that they know about it and don’t follow it, it’s just they don’t know much about the sport to know that a major is more prestigious than the Olympics.

“And whenever the Olympics comes around it’s always because we had a lot of sports where we were actually really good, like hockey, where we had, we used to win gold medals all the time.

“With golf being in (at Olympics) the second time I think people are a lot more aware and trying to follow it a lot more.”