Chikkarangappa cards 65 to emerge halfway leader at Delhi-NCR Open

Chikkarangappa cards 65 to emerge halfway leader at Delhi-NCR Open

Key Highlights:

→ Chikkarangappa takes the second round lead at Delhi-NCR Open.

→ Harendra Gupta slips to 2nd position.

→ Fifty-six professionals made the cut at the halfway stage.

Chikkarangappa made the most of benign conditions to shoot a seven-under 65 on Wednesday and take a one-shot lead at the halfway stage of the Delhi-NCR Open at the Golden Greens Golf Club in Gurugram.

Gurugram’s Tapy Ghai (67) and Chandigarh’s Harendra Gupta (70) were in joint second place with totals of eight-under-136 at the Rs. 30 lakh event.

Chikka, a winner of 14 titles, made eight birdies and an eagle on the 18th hole he shot only bogey and a double bogey in his splendid 65 round to claim a one-shot lead after 36 holes.

Chikka said, “I had a terrific start today and was stroking the ball well on the greens. The putts rolled in for me on a consistent basis. I had a disastrous 10th hole but importantly I kept calm and quickly got back into rhythm picking up a couple of strokes over the next two holes.

“My iron-play was much better today as compared to round one. One hardly finds a flat lie on the fairways at Golden Greens. So in round one, I had a tough time dealing with the lie on the fairways which have a lot of slopes. You can’t even see the fairway slopes from the tees here. Today, I figured out a few things about striking the ball from the slopes on the fairways.”

Harendra Gupta (66-70), the round one joint leader, returned a 70 that featured three birdies and a bogey. He made some gains towards the end after making pars on his first 13 holes.

Chandigarh’s Ajeetesh Sandhu, the first-round joint leader, slipped to tied fourth at six-under-138 after a round of 72. Bengaluru’s Khalin Joshi, who also struck the day’s joint best score of 65, was bunched in tied fourth along with Ajeetesh, Pune’s Udayan Mane (67), Patna-based Aman Raj (66), and Gaurav Pratap Singh (68) of Noida.

Delhi’s Honey Baisoya, who was a part of the three-way lead in round one, shot a 74 to drop to tied 12th place at four-under-140. PGTI Order of Merit leader Karandeep Kochhar (69) of Chandigarh was also in tied 12th position.

Rashid Khan (74) was a further shot back in tied 17th place.