Lahiri makes cut at Hilton Head, lies T-16
Indian golfer Anirban Lahiri carded a sedate one-under 70 in the second round to be tied 16th at the midway stage of the RBC Heritage at the Harbour Town Golf Links. Lahiri had turned in a fine fourunder 67 in the first round.
The Indian ace, who is returning to the course after the Arnold Palmer Invitational, is five places down from his first round T-11th.
Lahiri is five shots behind co-leaders Canadian Graham Delaet and Luke Donald, who has been second here four times but never won the title. Both shot 67 each after identical 65s in the opening round. Ian Poulter (66-68) and Webb Simpson (66-68) are tied third while first round leader Bud Cauley (63-72) is tiedfifth with four others.
Lahiri birdied the second and the 11th and dropped his only bogey on 14th.
In the ongoing season, Lahiri has one top-3 (CIMB Classic T-3) and two other top-15 finishes at Honda Classic (T-11) and RSM Classic (T-13) and is currently 60th in the FedEx Cup rankings.
However, Lahiri is aiming for some good finishes to get back to Top-50, up from his current 80th, and also wants to qualify for the President’s Cup later this year.
Delaet followed up his careerbest six-under 65 in the first round with a 67 to share the lead with Luke Donald midway through the RBC Heritage.
Donald has finished second or third in six of his past eight visits to the RBC Heritage -- and put himself in position for another stellar finish this time, too.
Poulter, playing on a major medical extension, is on the clock to keep his card and needs about $145,000 in his next two events to maintain his playing status and is off to a strong start.
His 66-68 is the just the second time in seven career visits to Harbour Town he’s opened with two sub-70 rounds. First-round leader Bud Cauley followed his 63 with a 72 and was in a group of five at seven-under that included former PGA Championship winner Jason Dufner and Sam Saunders, the grandson of golf’s late king, Arnold Palmer. There were 74 golfers who made the cut which came at one-under par, the lowest ever at Harbour Town.
India’s campaign ended at the Asian Table Tennis Championship as Achanta Sharath Kamal bowed out in the prequarterfinals after losing to Lam Siu Hang of Hong Kong at Wuxi on Saturday.
Kamal went down 2-3 (6-11, 11-9, 9-11, 14-12, 10-12) after waging a spirited fight.
Despite losing the first game rather quickly, Kamal made amends and came back strongly in the second game against the Hong Kong paddler, who exacted revenge in a similar fashion by winning the third game with minimal points to go 2-1 up.
A more determined Sharath started to attack well and almost cornered his opponent by saving two match matches to level the scores 2-2.