Pune, Nov 7 (PTI) Chandigarh’s Karandeep Kochhar and Kshitij Naveed Kaul of Delhi continued as joint leaders for the second day running at The Poona Club Open, an INR 1 crore event, here on Thursday.
Kochhar (64-66) and Kaul (64-66), the round one joint leaders by one shot, continued in the lead at the halfway stage with totals of 12-under 130 after they carded scores of five-under 66 in round two at the Poona Club Golf Course.
TATA Steel PGTI Ranking leader Veer Ahlawat and Samarth Dwivedi too returned rounds of 66 to be tied third at eight-under 134.
The cut came down at even-par 142. Fifty-eight professionals made the cut.
Kochhar, a 10th tee starter, couldn’t have asked for a better start to the day as he holed his chip from 35 yards for eagle on the Par-4 10th. A couple of good iron shots and two long conversions then earned him birdies on the 13th and 16th.
The bogeys on the 18th and the second holes did not derail his round as Kochhar rallied with a great recovery shot over the trees to claim an eagle on the seventh. Kochhar followed that up with a 15-feet birdie conversion on the eighth.
Kaul drove the Par-4 14th green for the second consecutive day to pick up a birdie there. He added another birdie thereafter but stumbled with a couple of bogeys on the 17th and third.
Kaul’s purple patch began with his outstanding bunker shot on the fifth that led to a tap-in birdie.
Kaul, who won his maiden professional title at the Poona Club Golf Course back in 2019 and has also won amateur, junior and sub-junior events at the same venue, went on to bag an eagle with a 12-feet conversion on the Par-5 seventh.
He signed off with a flourish by following up the eagle with birdies from short range on the eighth and ninth.
Shivendra Singh Sisodia posted the day’s best score of 64 to jump 35 spots to tied fifth at seven-under 135.
The three other golfers bunched in tied fifth were last year’s TATA Steel PGTI Ranking champion Om Prakash Chouhan (67), Shaurya Bhattacharya (67) and Aryan Roopa Anand (67).
Pranav Mardikar (68) was the best-placed among the Pune-based professionals as he occupied the tied 14th position at five-under 137.
Local favourite Udayan Mane struck a 67 to be placed tied 22nd at three-under 139. PTI PDS PDS AH AH
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