The Hindu : Sport / Golf : Arjun Atwal makes the midway cut

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 06, 2007
ePaper

Sport

Sport - Golf

Arjun Atwal makes the midway cut

Fort Smith (U.S.): Arjun Atwal made good improvement in the second round with a three-under 67 to make the midway cut at Fort Smith Classic golf tournament on Friday.

Atwal, who has been dividing his time between Nationwide and PGA Tours, was at the aggregate of three-under 137 to be tied 51st.

Atwal had an even par 70 on the first day. He was on the cut line, which saw no less than 17 players. Starting out on the first tee, Atwal birdied the third, fourth and sixth and without any bogeys he turned in three-under and then added a fourth birdie on the 12th. On the 14th, he had his only blemish with a bogey on the par-four hole.

Local resident Craig Lile (64) overtook Scott Gutschewski (67) at the top of the leaderboard.

Lile is now 10-under and one ahead of Gutschewski. Lile, who had a 65 in first round had a fine stretch between second and nine, when he fired five birdies during it.

Recovers ground

At Milan, Jyoti Randhawa recovered some ground as the rain-hit second day saw him take advantage of the `preferred lies rule' to shoot three-under 69 in the 10 holes in the second round play on Friday at the Telecom Italia Open golf tournament.

Randhawa, second in Madrid last week, was now four-under through 10 holes possible on the second day and lying 29th.

India's other challenger Jeev Milkha Singh, who had a 69 on first day, was yet to begin his second round.

Randhawa's playing partner Alvaro Quiros, who was seven-under in the first round, added a few more as he fired a three-under from 10 holes to move into the lead at 10-under overall alongside Markus Brier (-1 after 8) and Joakim Backstrom who has not started his second round.

Nightmare second nine

At Seoul, a disastrous back nine saw Amandeep Johl slide way down the ladder into tied 70th place after the third round of the GS Caltex Maekyung Open.

Johl, who seemed fine with an even par first nine, which he played on the back stretch of the course, shot a six-over 42 on second nine to card a six-over 78, that gave him a total of nine-over 225.

Earlier, Rahil Gangjee had missed the half-way cut.

Meanwhile, China's Liang Wen-chong stayed firmly on track to grab his second title of the season when he retained his overnight one-shot lead after the third round.

The 28-year-old Liang, who has led since the opening day at the Nam Seoul Country Club, carded a brilliant five-under 67 for a three-day score of 14-under 202 in the $600,000 Asian Tour event.

Liang has an added incentive as victory on Sunday will see him top the Asian Tour's UBS Order of Merit.

The in-form Kim, who turned professional after winning two gold medals at the Doha Asian Games last December, produced a wonderful back nine performance that thrilled the galleries.

Last year's champion Suk Jong-yul of Korea shot a 72 for a 215 total, good for tied 18th place in what is the 13th leg of this season's Asian Tour schedule. — Agencies

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport