Aman Raj, Veer Ahlawat in halfway lead at Players Championship

By Rahul Banerji

Things tightened at the top of the Tata Steel PGTI Players Championship standings with Veer Ahlawat joining overnight topper Aman Raj in the halfway lead on 12-under-par 132 at the Eagleton course on Wednesday.

While Gurgaon-based Ahlawat hit a 65, Aman returned a 67 on the day, the essentially swapping day one and day two scores for a one-shot lead over the field in the Rs 30 lakh event.

Local boy Khalin Joshi had the day’s best score of 8-under-64 to take third place on 11-under-133 at the second event of the season.

Pre-tournament favourite and defending champion Shubhankar Sharma followed his first round 73 with a steady 71 in round two to sit in a share of 35^th place on level-par-144.

The cut fell at one-over-145 with 50 professionals advancing to the last two rounds.

Accurate driving

Ahlawat (67-65), a 10^th tee starter, reaped the benefits for his accuracy off the tee with five birdies on the back nine including four on the trot.

He then climbed to an imposing 8-under for the day with three more birdies between the first and the fifth including a chip-in but stumbled towards the end with two bogeys where he missed chip-putts against one further birdie.

Veer said, “I hit a lot more fairways today as compared to round one so that set up the opportunities for me. My putting was also better than the first round. I played well for most of the day but had a bad stretch towards the end.

“I’ve bogeyed the ninth on both days as it doesn’t suit my eye. So, I’ll look to change my game-plan and do something different on that hole over the next two days.”

Precision play

First round leader Aman Raj (65-67) managed to stay on top of the leader-board for the second day running with a card that featured eight birdies and three bogeys including some precise approach work.

“It was a good day for me except I feel I made a few too many bogeys,” Aman said later.

“My approaches and wedges were good and I was happy with my recovery on the last three holes as I birdied the seventh and ninth.”

Khalin Joshi’s flawless 64 included an eagle-two on the sixth where he found the hole with his lob wedge shot from 105 yards.

Noida’s Gaurav Pratap Singh also shot the day’s best 64 to be tied fourth on 10-under-134 along with Delhi’s Himmat Rai who fired an error-free 66.

Gaurav Pratap submitted a card with nine birdies and a bogey. He made a birdie chip-in on the 15^th and a couple of quality par-saves on the front-nine.

Pune’s Udayan Mane, who won PGTI’s last two events, was a further stroke back in tied sixth.

Shubhankar Sharma recovered well after a double-bogey on the first hole as he added five birdies at the cost of two bogeys to his card.

Bangalore-based Viraj Madappa, joint runner-up in Hyderabad last week, missed the cut by one shot after firing a 72 in the second round that took his total to two-over-146.

Indian hockey legend Dilip Tirkey too missed the cut with an 18-over-162.

Also read: Mane makes it back-to-back titles with solid final round at Hyderabad