Shubhankar in lead

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 13

Chandigarh’s Shubhankar Sharma kept up the intensity for the second day running to continue in the joint lead at the Rs 1 crore TAKE Open Golf Championship being played at the Chandigarh Golf Club. Shubhankar, who posted a 2-under-70 in Round 2, was joined by Kolkata’s Divyanshu Bajaj at the top of the leaderboard as the latter carded a 5-under-67.

 Shubhankar and Divyanshu had a two-day tally of 6-under-138 and thus led the field by one shot. Akshay Sharma (71), another Chandigarh golfer, occupied tied-3rd place along with Noida’s Rahul Bajaj (67) at 5-under-139. The cut fell at 2-over-146. Fifty-three professionals made the cut. 

Jeev misses cut

Jeev Milkha Singh, one of the pre-tournament favourites, missed the cut by one shot.  Jeev’s (75-72) two-day total read 3-over-147 and placed him tied-54th.

 Jeev said, “I suffered due to a bad start for the second day in succession. I did manage to pull it back well with a 3-under on the back-nine. However, I need to do a lot of work with my driver and improve on my tee shots that have let me down this week.” 

Shubhankar Sharma (68-70) was in good form just like the first round and managed to keep the errors in check. The 21-year-old scored his first birdie on the 17th, his eighth hole, and then went on to pick up two more strokes on the second and third. A missed opportunity from four feet cost him his only bogey of the day on the fifth. 

Divyanshu Bajaj (71-67) zoomed from overnight tied-17th to joint first after firing the day’s best score of 67. 

Divyanshu began his ascent by sinking three birdies from a range of 10 to 15 feet on the back-nine. His eagle on the second propelled him further up the leaderboard. He dropped his only shot of the day on the sixth but quickly came back with an excellent tee shot on the eighth that led to a tap-in birdie.

Rahul Bajaj made six birdies and a bogey in his round of 67, the day’s joint best, to move up 26 places to tied-3rd. Local lad Akshay Sharma also took a share of third to make it two Chandigarh golfers in the top four.

Abhijit Singh Chadha, Karandeep Kochhar and Sujjan Singh were tied-9th with matching scores of 3-under-141. Ashbeer Saini was tied-9th. Delhi’s Rashid Khan (71) was joint 13th at 2-under-142 while Jyoti Randhawa (72) closed the day in tied-28th at even-par-144.