.jpg "Hero Indian Open 2024, Day 2: Veer Ahlawat stays within the hunt; Nakajima opens two-shot lead; Kofstad units course file")
Veer Ahlawat, one of many longest hitters on the home tour and sometimes leads the ‘éagle-count’ for the season, moved inside 5 strokes of the chief on the second day of the $2.25 million Hero Indian Open on the DLF Golf and Country Club right here.
The day produced a course file of 10-under 62 from Norway’s Espen Kofstad – after a extremely forgettable 81 on the primary day – that erased the earlier better of 64 by Shubhankar Sharma within the 2018 version of this premier occasion and by Arjun Puri within the Kapil Dev-Grand Thornton Invitational in 2022.
When play was suspended because of lightning, 46 golfers – together with Shubhankar and Anirban Lahiri – have been on the right track. The incomplete second spherical additionally meant that the projected ‘cut’ at 144 couldn’t be utilized.
For the file, Japanese Keita Nakajima prolonged his keep on the high following a successive seven-under 65 for a two-round tally of 130. He led Frenchman Romain Langasque by two photographs and moved three strokes forward of fellow in a single day chief, Italian Matteo Manassero.
Ahlawat began from the tenth gap and located pars on the primary seven holes. This was adopted by three successive birdies earlier than he erred in judgement, and dropped a shot on the second gap of the course.
He responded with an ‘eagle’ on the fourth after his very good strategy shot left him 10 ft from the pin. He collected two extra birdies to enhance his card from a first-day 69 to give you a 66.
Nakajima’s measured placing earned him 5 birdies in a row on the entrance 9, and positioned him manner forward of the pack at -12. He added back-to-back birdies after taking the flip to maneuver to -14 with seven holes to play. After two pars, the Japanese encountered unexpected bother together with his placing as he bogeyed thrice in succession to slide to -11 with two holes to go.
Again, on the testing seventeenth, Nakajima produced a shocking drive, a well-calculated shot from the green and birdied to get again the boldness. But his greatest got here on the ultimate gap. On the par-5, Nakajima reached the inexperienced on two and drained an ‘eagle-putt’ from about 20 ft to complete at -14.