Rookie Saptak Talwar followed up his first round of six-under 64 with an equally impressive five-under 65 on day two to emerge as the halfway leader at the Rs 1 crore Jaipur Open golf tournament here on Thursday. (Sports News)
24-year-old rookie Saptak Talwar reached the halfway point of the Jaipur Open 2023 top of the leaderboard. The youngster edged the more established pros by taking an unprecedented lead, positioning himself well to win the competition
Rookie Saptak Talwar followed up his first round of six-under 64 with an equally impressive five-under 65 on day two to emerge as the halfway leader at the Rs 1 crore Jaipur Open golf tournament here on Thursday. (Sports News)
Talwar has a total of 11-under 129 over two days as the cut came down at one-under 139. Fifty-five professionals made the cut.
Manu Gandas, the 2022 TATA Steel PGTI Ranking champion, was placed second at 10-under 130 as he recorded a second straight score of 65.
Talwar of the Jaypee Greens Golf Resort, Greater Noida, who was lying one off the lead in tied second place after round one, picked up birdies on the 10th and 12th from a range of eight to 10 feet to make an early move.
The 24-year-old then dropped his only bogey of the day on the 13th but quickly recovered with a great bunker shot to set up birdie on the 14th.
Talwar went on to add three more birdies to his card including an 18-feet conversion on the first and a tap-in on the par-3 sixth after having produced a superb tee shot.
“I placed it well today and made good up and downs to keep the momentum going. I turned at three-under and the 18-feet conversion on the first, my best putt of the day, helped me take forward the momentum on the front-nine," said Talwar, currently 38th on the TATA Steel PGTI Ranking with three top-10 finishes this season.
“There was just one blemish on my card but other than that, I handled the course well. I hope to keep repeating the same over the next two days.”
First round leader Akshay Sharma (68) and the 2018 Jaipur Open winner Aman Raj (66) were tied third at nine-under 131.
TATA Steel PGTI Ranking leader and last year’s champion Om Prakash Chouhan missed the cut by one shot.
All the Jaipur-based professionals missed the cut.