Chawrasia cards 68 to climb to 5th at Austrian Open; Sharma lies T-20

Indian golfer SSP Chawrasia battled to a four-under 68 to move up to tied fifth after the second round of the Austrian Open, three shots behind leader Alejandro Cañizares.

Chawrasia’s rise up the leaderboard will inject the confidence he needed in his game following a lean spell in 2021, where he has missed the cut in his last three starts.

The four-time European Tour winner, Chawrasia, fired four birdies and one bogey in a spectacular round of 68 at the challenging Diamond Country Club, Austria.

Another Indian on the field, Shubhankar Sharma, also played some solid game of golf as he bounced back from a first-round of 75. Sharma shot a 4-under 68 to move up to the Tied-20th position at the halfway point of the tournament.

Ajeetesh Sandhu, playing his first event outside India since March last year, made an even bigger comeback after 77 in the first round.

The 2019 Jeev Milkha Singh Invitational champion Ajeetesh Sandhu carded 2-under 70 in the second round to keep himself in the race to compete on the weekend.

'No, I did not think about those missed cuts when I started today. I was thinking about handling the cold weather. On the first day, it was 3 degrees and very cold when I began.

'Today, it was about 6 degrees, and we were joking that we were wearing all the clothes we had brought,” said Chawrasia with a laugh.

'I had an even-par on the first day, but today I got off to a good start. The driving and hitting was fine and putting worked, though I thought I should have got a couple of them more, bit 4-under is not bad in these cold conditions.'