With the Indians and a few others struggling to putt consistently, Paul Yannik consolidated his position at the top in the $2 million Hero Indian Open golf at the DLF Golf and Country Club here on Friday.
The German followed his first round of 7-under 65 with a 69 for a two-round tally of 10-under 134. He enjoyed a five-stroke lead over Angad Cheema and three others at 5-under 139.
Angad’s 71 left him as the highest ranked Indian in the competition’s half-way stage. The ‘cut’ came at four-over 148 and left 67 players to form the money-list. In all, 16 Indians survived the ‘cut’ while defending champion Stephen Gallacher (77, 73) and former champion Jyoti Randhawa (76, 78) were among those who did not.
Overnight second Honey Baisoya slipped to the tied sixth spot after a 74. He started from the 10th tee with a birdie but stumbled thereafter with two double-bogeys and a bogey. He recovered through successive birdies for a front-nine 34. Coming in, Baisoya had three bogeys and a birdie spread over five holes but again, he finished strongly with two consecutive birdies.
Shubhankar Sharma, too, slipped with a 74 after three-putting thrice while Yuvraj Sandhu provided some cheer with a 71.
Like in the first round, Paul enjoyed the back-nine of the course after starting from the 10th tee. He birdied the 11th, 13th and 15th holes before a lull of five strokes ended with a bogey on the fifth hole. But he made amends by picking up a shot on the par-3 fifth hole and found par on the rest of the holes.
Reflecting on his play, Paul said, “I probably played almost better today than yesterday. I felt the pins were in tougher spots today so you had a lot of downhill putts.”
Going forward, the leader thought the course suited his game. “You have to stay patient. If you have a good strategy and hit quality irons, you get a lot of chances.”
Second-round scores (Indians unless stated):
134 - Paul Yannik (Ger) (65, 69); 139 - Angad Cheema (68, 71), Marcel Siem (Ger) (69, 70); Gudmundur Kristjansson (Isl) (68, 71), Mikko Korhonen (Fin) (67, 72).
Other Indians who made the ‘cut’:
140 - Honey Baisoya (66, 74); 141 - Yuvraj Sandhu (70, 71); 142 - Shubhankar Sharma (68, 74), Yashas Chandra (71, 71); 143 - Manu Gandas (70, 73), Veer Ahlawat (73, 70); 144 - Sachin Baisoya (75, 69), S. Chikkarangappa (75, 69); 147 - Khalin Joshi (72, 75), Karandeep Kochhar (77, 70), Kartik Sharma (74, 73); 148 - Gaganjeet Bhullar (75, 73), Shiv Kapur (75, 73); S. S. P. Chawrasia (75, 73) and M. Dharma (70, 78).
Prominent names/Indians, who missed the ‘cut’:
150 - Stephen Gallacher (Sco) (77, 73), Udayan Mane (79, 71); 151 - Yuvraj Singh (AM) (77, 74), Aadil Bedi (73, 78), Dhruv Sheoran (75, 76), Thomas Bjorn (Den) (74, 77); 154 - Abhijit Singh Chadha (73, 81); Shamim Khan (78, 76), Jyoti Randhawa (76, 78), Om Prakash Chouhan (77, 77); 156 - Varun Parikh (82, 74); 157 - Abhinav Lohan (83, 74), Akashay Sharma (74, 83), Rashid Khan (76, 81); 158 - Anant Singh Ahlawat (Am) (77, 81); 165 - Kshitij Naveed Kaul (85, 80); 175 - Sandeep Yadav (91, 84); Ajeetesh Sandhu (73, withdrawn).
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