Nomura Cup: Pinoys fade

The Philippines faded in the second round of the 29th Nomura Cup golf team championship, dropping to ninth place, 14 shots behind pacesetting Japan at the Manila Southwoods Golf and Country Club in Carmona, Cavite Wednesday.

The Filipinos could only score 151 with all three players failing to match par. Kristoffer Arevalo made an early quadruple bogey, Elee Bisera went four over on his first 11 holes and Coby Rolida didn’t make a birdie until his 17th hole that typified the kind of struggles the hosts went through in the face of the blustery winds while playing in the late flights during the round.

Elee Bisera played his last seven holes at two under en route to becoming the Philippines’ best scorer a 75 with 76 of Arevalo counting as the hosts’ other score. Rolida did not count with his 78.

Minato Oshima handled the difficult wind conditions better than anyone else as he fired the day’s best score of five-under-par 67 spiked by an eagle and powered Japan to a three-stroke lead over Korea at the halfway point.

Yuta Sugiura stayed steady with a three-under 69 for the other half of Japan’s 136 total for the day that pushed the Japanese atop the leaderboard at 274, 14 under par. Korea, however, stayed close on the heels of the Japanese by matching their 136 second-round output for a 277 total.

“Glad to have played well we are going to attack and try to go for as many birdies in the next two days,” said Sugiura, who kept a share of the individual lead at 136 with Oshima, Yubin Jang of Korea (68) and James Leow of Singapore (72) right behind them at 138.

New Zealand (140) and Singapore (144) were tied for third with similar 281s, Chinese-Taipei (145) was fifth at 283 while first-day leader Australia slumped to a 150 despite Jack Buchanan’s 70 and dropped to sixth at 285.