Hero Indian Open: day two report

SSP Chawrasia, the only man in the field yet to drop a shot, leads outright by one shot

SSP Chawrasia, one of five joint overnight leaders of the Hero Indian Open, now leads the tournament outright after day two.

Chawrasia, the only man in the field yet to drop a shot, carded a 67 to take him one shot clear of Siddikur Rahman.

“I’ve played here many times so I know how to play on this course,” explained the 36 year old, “but this is the first time I’m bogey free after 36 holes. I feel good and aggressive - I will do the same on the last two days. It wasn’t easy to keep the bogeys away from my card, I had to make a lot of saves.”

Siddikur Rahman had been one of the overnight leaders of the Hero Indian Open and had lead outright by three hosts at one stage on the second day before being overhauled by late starter Chawrasia.

Rahman’s round was marred by a double bogey on the 4^th, his 13^th hole of the day when he drove into bushes and had to take a penalty drop. But he rallied well from this setback with three consecutive pars followed by two closing birdies.

Rahman is another who knows the course well – in eleven appearances at this venue he has only once finished outside the top 10

Maybank Malaysian Open champion Anirban Lahiri was another to rally superbly. In his case it was from a first round which had included a 8 on the 10^{th ,}which left him in 80^th position.

On the second day he shot 65, the lowest round of the tournament so far, which contained three bogeys, six pars and nine birdies . He moved up 73 places on the leaderboard as a result.

Two players made a hole in one today, to take the tally of aces on tour this season to 15.

Abhinav Lohan did so on the 163-yard 17th hole with an 8-iron and then a little later Prayad Marksaeng holed on the 181-yard 5^th with a 6-iron.

Despite this boost to his scorecard, Marksaeng missed the cut. Sixty-eight players have made it through to the weekend, including 16 Indian golfers.

Hero Indian Open leaderboard