The 20-year-old Kaul (69-65-70-72), the overnight leader by one shot, maintained his hold at the top of the leaderboard through the day after getting out of trouble on a number of occasions. He ended up with a tournament tally of 12-under 276 to prevail by one shot.

Gurugram’s Ankur Chadha (68-69-69-71) struck a 71 to move up one spot and finish a career-best second at 11-under 277.

Panchkula’s Angad Cheema (68-68-69-73) shot a 73 to drop one spot to third place at 10-under 278. He did not recover after his three bogeys early on took him to one-over for the day at the turn. He made pars all the way till the end.

Om Prakash Chouhan (72) of Mhow and Chandigarh’s Yuvraj Sandhu (73) shared fifth place at five-under 283. Local lad Sunit Chowrasia (71-68-71-70) had the best finish among the Kolkata golfers as he took fourth place at eight-under 280.

Kaul had an early setback when he bogeyed the third. The ever-smiling Kaul, who hardly displays any emotions on the course, then made some outstanding recoveries from the rough to claim birdies on the fourth and fifth and stretch his lead to a comfortable three shots.

The six-foot-tall Koul, playing his third season on the PGTI, played a brilliant bunker shot on the 11th to set up a tap-in and save par. A couple of erratic iron shots then resulted in bogeys for him on the 12th and 13th as his lead came down to just one shot.

He wrested the initiative as he produced another fabulous bunker shot on the 15th for a tap-in birdie. He went on to sink a four-foot pressure putt on the 18th to win the title.

“I wanted to go as low as I could but I made a few mistakes today. Nonetheless, I made some good short putts and managed to pull off birdies from tough spots. I recovered really well from the rough and the bunker on more than one occasion and that too at key moments,"Koul said after the win.

“I’ve been pretty consistent this season and this win is a result of that consistency,” added Kaul, who took home the winning cheque worth Rs. 6,46,600 to move up from 19th place to 14th position in the PGTI Order of Merit.

Ankur Chadha was Koul nearest challenger for the title through the day. Ankur made two birdies and a bogey to end up as one of only two players in the field (along with Sunit Chowrasia) to shoot four sub-par rounds.

Chadha, struggling to find fairways through the day, kept himself in contention with his putting. Ankur recovered from the trees and made a 25-feet birdie conversion on the 16th to get within one shot of the lead. However, he could not convert from long range on the 17th and 18th to catch up with Kaul. He narrowly missed his 25-feet birdie putt on the 18th.

The Pro-Am Team Championship was won by the team representing Aluk Building Systems Private Limited. The winning team consisted of professionals Yuvraj Singh Sandhu, Shivendra Singh Sisodia, Arjun Sharma, Sanjeev Kumar, and Karan Pratap Singh and amateurs Abhikanks Basu, Jaikishan Lakhmani, Brijraj Singh, and Garv Lakhani.