Former amateur champ Xiong tied with Champ in Mississippi

CARY ( N. Carolina): Former amateur champion Norman Xiong has made a rocky start to his professional career, but he took a step in the right direction by seizing a share of the halfway lead at the Sanderson Farms Championship in Mississippi.

Xiong, born on the US island territory of Guam to Chinese parents, carded a five-under 67 in the second round at Country Club of Jackson on Friday and tied Cameron Champ at nine-under 135.

Champ bogeyed his final two holes to shoot 70. Fellow Americans Shawn Stefani and Jonathan Byrd, who both shot 68, are a shot further back on 136.

Xiong hit his share of errant shots, but a chip-in birdie at the sixth hole and a 55-foot eagle putt from the fringe at the 11th kept his ship sailing along nicely.

“Things kind of went my way (but) I’ll take it,” the teenager told Golf Channel.

“Those good breaks help. I have a few things to clean up. My game’s not perfectly where I want it but if I manage it well hopefully this can continue.”

If Xiong, who turns 20 on Nov. 9, triumphs today, he would become only the second teenager to win on the PGA Tour since 1931. Jordan Spieth was two weeks shy of his 20th birthday when he won the 2013 John Deere Classic.

Xiong was crowned the top collegiate golfer in the US earlier this year before turning pro six months ago.

His coach at the University of Oregon was Casey Martin, who was a college teammate of Tiger Woods at Stanford.

“At 19 years old, I think Tiger is the only guy I would defer to as being better than Norman,” Martin told golfchannel.com in April.

Xiong, however, missed the cut in his first six starts as a pro, a far cry from where Woods was at the same stage of his career, already a winner on the PGA Tour.

In Taipei, Home favourite Hsu Wei-ling bounced back from a first hole bogey to share the lead with the USA’s Nelly Korda going into the final round of the LPGA Taiwan Championship.

Korda fired five birdies to card 69 at the par-72 Ta Shee Golf and Country Club in Taoyuan yesterday and chase down Wei-ling, who has basked in the encouragement from a crowd eager to see a local golfer win for the first time in five years.

Jodi Ewart Shadoff’s hopes for a first Tour victory after sparkling seven-under 65 opening round looked increasingly distant as she bogeyed the 11th to card 73.

She sits on 209, alongside fellow Englishwoman Bronte Law, American Megan Kang and Ko Jinyoung of South Korea, who went bogey-free to equal her second round score of 69.

Also at 209 was former world number one Lydia Ko, who shot a single birdie and bogey apiece.