Thai Open: Aadil slips, Sandhu T-3rd on Day 2

Chachoengsao (Thailand), November 8 

Ajeetesh Sandhu and SSP Chawrasia carded an identical 4-under 67 each to be tied-third at the half-way stage of the Thailand Open today. 

The Indian duo was one shot off the leaders — Thai pro Poom Pattaropong (65) and amateur Natttaphat Harnchokchaiskul (70) who were 8-under 134 after the second round. 

Sandhu and Chawrasia were joined by another Thai, Prom Meesawat (67), and Australian Andrew Martin (68) in third place.

Though Sandhu and Chawrasia were the best placed Indians, the star performance came from Shiv Kapur, who after a disappointing 74 on the first day carded his season-best round of 8-under 63 to rocket up to tied-10th at 5-under 137. 

His blistering 63 was a new course record on the par-71 set-up.

Other Indians making the cut were S Chikkarangappa (70-70) in tied-31st place and Viraj Madappa (70-71) tied-41st.

Jyoti Randhawa (71-72), Khalin Joshi (69-74) and Aadil Bedi (66-77) also survived the half-way cut, which fell at 1-over 143. Seventy eight players, including three amateurs, progressed into the weekend rounds.

Rashid Khan (72-72), Himmat Rai (74-72), Abhijit Chadha (74-72), Aman Raj (75-72) and Jeev Milkha Singh (75-76) missed the cut.

“It’s been two different days for me it seems. I don’t think I played that poorly yesterday. I just could not score because I couldn’t hole a putt. I was struggling a bit and I hit it into the rough a lot yesterday but it didn’t look as bad as my score of 74. I went back to reflect upon it,” Kapur said after the day’s play. 

“I putted pretty well. It was windy out there so it was tough to get it close. But, yeah, I scored well. Thankfully, the wind was quite consistent through, so it wasn’t affecting our minds too much. But it was still tough out there,” said Sandhu. — PTI