Sharma cards bogey free 64 to jump to 11that Turkish Airlines Open


PTI | Antalya | Updated: 08-11-2019 20:38 IST | Created: 08-11-2019 20:38 IST
Sharma cards bogey free 64 to jump to 11that Turkish Airlines Open
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India's Shubhankar Sharma fired a flawless eight-under 64 in the second round to rise to Tied-11 at the halfway stage of the Turkish Airlines Open golf tournament here on Friday. The 23-year-old Indian, who was T-37 overnight, holed eight birdies without dropping a bogey to bring home the day's second best card.

"The best part was that it was a bogey free round," said an elated Sharma, who is nine-under for 36 holes. "I drove much better than the first round and my iron play was on the spot. I found all fairways barring two, one of which was barely an inch off.

"I seem to have a birdie chance on most holes and the longest putt was just over 10 feet, maybe about 12. So I played my approaches also well." Comparing his first two rounds, Sharma said, "I was proud of the first one for the way I fought back and today I made almost no errors.

"I did miss a two and a half foot putt and on my last hole, the ninth, I had a makeable eight-footer, which I stroked well, but it did not fall." On the gameplan for next two days, he said: "On a course like this any of the players can come up with a low number and zoom up, so I need to play well to stay somewhere up. Today's job was well done, but there is two more days to go."

Austrian Matthias Schwab (67), playing in the last group, birdied the 18th to break away from a big pack and take sole lead at 12-under. Double defending champion, Justin Rose added a second straight five-under 67 to get to 10-under and positioned himself well to make a charge for a historic third successive Turkish Airlines Open win.

Five players are at 11-under and it included Swede Alex Noren (67) who was also 12-under when he came to the final hole. He went into thick bushes off his second shot but hit out very well, only to three-putt on the green and give away a bogey to fall to 11-under.

Also at 11-under were 2016 Masters winner, Danny Willett (67-66), Thomas Detry (66) and Ross Fisher (64), who has not won since early 2014 but gave himself a shot with birdies on each of the five Par-5s. The day's best of nine-under 63 came from Scottish rookie Robert MacIntyre, who has finished runner-up three times this season.

He teed off from the 10th and turned in three-under before getting six birdies on the front nine of the Montgomerie Maxx Royal course which he played six-under 29. He missed birdies at three of the five Par-5s. Another player to go low was Justin Harding, who was six-under 29 for the front nine with four birdies and an eagle.

He, however, dropped a bogey on 10th before two more birdies helped him to finish 65. He is now 10-under 134 following his first day 69. Harding was Tied-sixth with Rose, MacIntyre, Jason Scrivener (66) and David Lipsky (68), while Sharma was T-11 with Aaron Rai (67), Scott Jamieson (68) and Tom Lewis (70).

The 2018 Masters champion, Patrick Reed celebrated his inclusion into the President's Cup team for US, with a 65 that saw him go up more than 20 places to T-14.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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