Daily Mail

CAN BRADY GET TO SUPER BOWL AGAIN?

- By RIATH AL-SAMARRAI

Twenty minutes apart, the European Tour’s social media team put out two tweets yesterday about the marvellous enigma that is Tyrrell hatton. The first showed him in a mocked-up therapy session for angry golfers, and the second was footage of his latest eagle in Abu Dhabi — where he is threatenin­g to pummel the field. Two sides of the same fascinatin­g coin. But we have long passed the point where hatton’s achievemen­ts are overshadow­ed by his flares of temper on the course. his scoring has seen to that, and in the desert there is now a significan­t chance of him claiming a third big win in 14 months. By reaching 12 under par through 13 holes of his second round before play was suspended at the Abu Dhabi hSBC Championsh­ip, the Englishman holds a fivestroke lead over Rory McIlroy, who sits in a fourway tie for second. While McIlroy failed to build on an excellent opening-day 64 — he was one over through 14 when bad light stopped play — hatton was imperious. Resuming on seven under, he sank his third eagle of the week at the second and then collected four straight birdies from the seventh. his only dropped shot was at the third. It would be worth just shy of £1million to hatton (below) if he can hold on through Sunday. ‘I’m obviously in a great position at the moment,’ said the world No 9, who drained a six-footer in fading light at the 13th to save par. ‘It was certainly tough out there, so I’m really happy to be five under. ‘I have five holes left to play and it’s going to be a bit of a long wait potentiall­y if I finish nicely tomorrow morning before I go out for round three. But it will be fine. I’ll just try to stay loose and see how we go.’ McIlroy endured a frustratin­g day after his blemish-free round on Thursday. he started well, with birdies at the first and third to go 10 under, but failed to get up and down from a greenside bunker to save par at the fourth. A double-bogey followed at the fifth after he drove into the trees, and further dropped shots at 10 and 13 had the four-time major champion on course for the worst round of any player in the top 30 of the leaderboar­d. Birdies at eight and 14 brought him back to seven under though, and he will resume with a 20-foot birdie opportunit­y on 15 this morning. A bogey-free 67 lifted Tommy Fleetwood to six under, alongside Matt Wallace — who has six holes still to play of his second round.

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