Southern India Amateur: Samarth pulls clear at top

Bengaluru: On a rainy afternoon at the Par-72 Karnataka Golf Association here, Samarth Dwivedi pulled clear with another brilliant round of golf by carding a three-under-par 69 and took the halfway lead at the Tata Steel Southern India Amateur 2014 by 3 strokes over Delhi’s Pratap Atwal ,who matched his first round performance.

Pukhraj Singh Gill of Chandigarh roared into contention by matching Samarth on the day and is five strokes behind with a gross of two-under-par 142 at the end of round 2. Patna’s double winner, Aman Raj also brought in a card of three-under par 69 to stay ten strokes behind the leader at three-over-par 147. Arjun Sharma, who is the defending Tata Steel Eastern India Amateur champion, shot the other low score of the day of two-under par 70. Five players shot an even-par 72 for the round on a lower scoring day.

Smarting from the disappointing end to his otherwise scintillating round yesterday, Samarth who teed off from the 10th tee dropped a stroke on the 11th hole before immediately gaining one on the 12th. Two further birdies on the 14th and the 16th hole to go along a bogey 5 on the 17th, Samarth took the turn at one-under par for the day and five-under for the week. On the front nine of the course he hit birdies on the 1st, 4th and the 9th holes but bogeyed the par-4 4th hole to come in with another sub 70 score.

Second placed Pratap Atwal hit six birdies on his way to a round of two-under-par having dropped four strokes on the back nine. Aman Raj recovered his what seemed like a disappointing challenge, by putting like he was born to put and made four birdies on the back nine. Pukhraj Singh Gill had a steady round with four birdies and a bogey and moved 5 places up the leaderboard to be placed tied third.

“It is a great feeling to have a three stroke advantage at the halfway point.” Samarth said, clearly satisfied with a three-stroke cushion at the top. “However, I will have to keep producing rounds like these to win at this wonderful golf course.” He remarked.

Top Scores (after 36 holes):

137 Samarth Dwivedi (68,69); 140 Pratap Atwal (70,70); 142 Pukhraj Singh Gill (73,69), Viraj Madappa (69,73); 144 Jasjeet Singh (72,72); 145 Syed Saqib Ahmed (73,72); 147 Aman Raj (78,69), Udayan Mane (75,72), Arjun Sharma (77,70); 148 Zubin Nijhawan (72,76), Jaibir Singh (74,74), Hemendra Choudhary (76,72), Yuvraj Sandhu (75,73).