Indian golfer Gaganjeet Bhullar followed up his first round of six-under 65 with a second round 70 to lie tied-third after 36 holes of the Magical Kenya Open presented by Absa on Friday.
Bhullar trails the leader Louis De Jager (64-66) by five shots. Jack Singh Brar, the first round joint-leader, was lying second with rounds of 64-70.
Sharing the third spot with Bhullar was the in-form Justin Harding (70-65) who is trying to get inside top-50 of world ranking to qualify for the Masters and Guido Migliozi of Italy, who had rounds of 67-68.
Also moving up was S. Chikkarangappa (70-69) and he was tied-12th, though some players were still on the course. Khalin Joshi (72-69) was also safe through to the weekend action at tied-33rd.
However, Shubhankar Sharma, who defends his title in Malaysia next week, was outside the cut line after a first round three-over 74. He needs a low second round to make the cut, which is likely to fall at around one-over.
Bhullar had an error-free six-under on the first day and in the second round, which was yet to be completed, he suffered from a lapse in the middle of the round as he bogeyed three times in five holes from sixth to 10th. He also had four birdies, three of them in his last eight holes.
Bhullar was a picture of consistency in his first round 65, birdieing the first, sixth, seventh and eighth to turn in 31. Another birdie at the 14th had him in a four way tie for the lead and a long putt on the 17th moved him to six under.
Chikka had an eagle on each of the first two days. He eagled the par-5 sixth on first day and then did the same on the second day at the par-5 12th hole.
Interestingly, Khalin also had an eagle, but on par-4 10th during his second round 69.
Brar, who is an English player of Indian origin, picked up five shots in his last four holes to share the lead with Louis de Jager after round one.
Brar is playing only his 15th European Tour event. He turned professional in 2017 after taking three points from four in a losing Walker Cup effort and graduated from the European Challenge Tour last season with the help of a win at the Cordon Golf Open.
The Kenya Open started in 1967 and winners include Seve Ballesteros, Ian Woosnam and Trevor Immelman.
Diksha shines
India’s Diksha Dagar produced a decent round on difficult conditions to be placed tied 17th at the end of the first day at the Investec South African Women’s Open golf tournament in Cape Town on Friday.
Dagar, one of the four Indians playing in the event, shot two-over 74 on a difficult scoring day, with only two players in the 126-player field producing sub-par rounds at the Westlake Golf Club.
Ridhima impresses
Ridhima Dilawari became the first multiple winner of the year as she completed a start-to-finish win in the sixth leg of the Hero Women’s Pro Golf Tour at the Jaypee Greens in Greater Noida on Friday.
The 20-year-old Ridhima, who has been in great form, shot a third successive under par round of three-under 69 to get to 10-under 206.
That gave Ridhima a win by a whopping 10 shots, which was the second biggest victory margin after Tvesa Malik’s 15-shot win in the third leg earlier in the season.
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