By Rahul Banerji
Anirban Lahiri and Gaganjeet Bhullar survived some brutal weather to shoot a level par 72 for shared third place alongside Malaysia’s Ben Leong and Gavin Green at the $7 million ISPS Handa Melbourne World Cup of Golf on Friday.
Playing their second World Cup together, Lahiri and Bhullar moved up from tied seventh to give themselves a real shot at India’s best finish in the tournament.
At the top, South Koreans Byeonghun An and Siwoo Kim battled to level-par 72 for a share of the lead alongside Belgium after the foursomes on Friday.
In Hong Kong, Indian-origin Englishman Aaron Rai (-14, 65, 61) blistered the course with a record-setting 61 to open a healthy lead going into the weekend at the Honma HK Open.
Rai sits four shots ahead of Korea’s Park Hyowon (68, 62).
Six Indians through
Shubhankar Sharma (-3) led six Indians into the money rounds. Keeping him company were Ajeetesh Sandhu (-3), Arjun Atwal(-2), Khalin Joshi (-1), Shiv Kapur (par) and Viraj Madappa (+1).
Sharma should seal his Asian Tour’s Habitat for Humanity Order of Merit title this week.
He already leads by more than $134,000 and a solid week here could put it his pursuers. Second placed Park Sunghyun was disqualified on Friday and that virtually finished the race.
Third placed Matt Wallace and fourth placed Gaganjeet Bhullar are not playing in Hong Kong this week. Events left include the Queen’s Cup, Mauritius Open and Indonesia Masters.
At Melbourne, the World Cup switches to fourballs for Saturday’s third round, with the final round moving back to foursomes on Sunday.
Despite persistent rain and high winds, An and Kim had three birdies against three bogeys at the Metropolitan Golf Club.
The Koreans, who opened with a solid 62 in the fourballs on Thursday, hold a two-shot lead alongside Belgium’s Thomas Pieters and Thomas Detry, who posted a 71, on 10-under-par 134s.
Steady show
Lahiri said, “I think it’s one of the toughest rounds of golf I’ve played in my career, in a long, long time. I think we both did really well out there and it wasn’t easy.
“This is more like playing in Scotland, I think. We both had some experience playing links golf and you can draw on that and I think that experience came in handy.
“It was one shot at a time for both of us. I think that’s what we do really well.
“Whether we made a good putt or we hit a bad shot, we didn’t carry that forward, and just focused on the next shot. That’s the only way you can play in conditions like that. I think we both did that well today.
Consistent
“It was pretty consistent. We had a couple of lapses in concentration which I did on the front nine. Maybe I could have made a couple of shorter ones, but Gaganjeet made a lot of par saves and you need that.
“You’re not going to have easy pars all day on a day like this and we did that really well coming in.”
“You’re not going to have easy pars all day on a day like this and we did that really well coming in.”
Added Bhullar, “The plan was to hit all the fairways and all the greens. As Anirban said, we played really well today. Anirban hit the ball so well from the tee, but I got all my favourite numbers.
“And putting‑wise, I think Anirban had some really good putts and I holed a few par saves. I think that kept the momentum going and that was one of the reasons we ended up playing well.
Good pars
“I think it was just like one of those rounds where making pars are really good. We were just motivating each other and keeping the ball in play, that was the goal.”
Andrea Pavan and Renato Paratore of Italy and England’s Ian Poulter and Tyrrell Hatton joined India and Malaysia in third place following rounds of 71 and 74 at the halfway stage.
Mexicans Abraham Ancer and Roberto Diaz had the day’s best of 70 to be in seventh place while home favourites Marc Leishman and Cam Smith slipped further to tied-eighth following a 76.
The 56-man field from 28 countries includes six Asian nations.
Koreans strong
The 23-year-old Kim, Players Championship winner in 2017, and 27-year-old An, a PGA Tour regular, are hoping to deliver Korea’s first triumph in the event where the nation’s best finish remains fifth place achieved in 1971 and 1982.
An said: “We started with a bogey. It’s such a tough format with this wind and rain, so I think we did well.
“I missed some shots on the back nine, but thankfully he had some good short game and made some good par putts.
“It was a cold day, so it was like just trying to hold on and have some fun and the result was pretty good. It was chaos, so I think we kept in the game and never got out of it.”
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