HALFWAY LEAD FOR HAPPY LOWRY DESPITE EARLY WOBBLE

IRELAND’S Shane Lowry recovered from a poor start to remain the man to catch in the £5.4million Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.

Lowry added a second round of 70 to his course record-equalling 62 on day one to post a halfway total of 12 under par, a shot ahead of former Open champion Louis Oosthuizen and another South African Richard

Sterne.

Lee Westwood is two shots off the lead after a bogeyfree 68, with Ian Poulter, Tom Lewis, Scott Jamieson and Soren Kjeldsen a shot further back on nine under.

Lowry saw his three-shot overnight lead wiped out as he bogeyed the second and third, but the 31-year-old bounced back with birdies at the fifth, seventh, 12th and 15th to remain on course for his first win since the 2015 WGC Bridgestone Invitational.

“I’m really happy with that,” Lowry (right) said.

“I knew today was going to be a bit of a weird day after shooting such a low score yesterday. I just tried to go out and play like I played.

“Some of the shots early on were pretty horrendous, so I battled back and hit some really nice shots out there and hit some in close and made some birdies. I was happy with myself.

“I was in Dubai for 12 days before I came up here and pretty much I was practising, training every day. I was there with Paul Dunne and we had a really nice time, we practised together and had some matches.

“I didn’t actually beat him once, so I wasn’t coming up here too optimistic.

“But I knew I had done everything right to get myself in a good frame of mind to play here.”