Jaipur, 14-12-2023

Saptak Talwar fires 65 for halfway lead

 

Manu Gandas in second place

 

Albatrosses for Divyanshu Bajaj and Varun Parikh

 

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 a total of 11-under 129 at the INR 1 crore Bhawani Singh Rathore presents Jaipur Open 2023 powered by AU Small Finance Bank being played at the Rambagh Golf Club in Jaipur.

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.

The cut came down at one-under 139. Fifty-five professionals made the cut.

Saptak 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 on Thursday. The 24-year-old Saptak 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.

Saptak, currently 38th on the TATA Steel PGTI Ranking with three top-10s this season, said, “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.

“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.”

Manu Gandas struck a second successive bogey-free round of 65 to move up two spots to second place.

First round leader Akshay Sharma (68) and the 2018 Jaipur Open winner Aman Raj (66) were in tied third place at nine-under 131.

Two players made albatrosses on the same day which is a very rare occurrence in golf. Divyanshu Bajaj scored an albatross on the par-5 14^th during his round of 64, the day’s lowest score, that placed him tied 25^th at four-under 136. Varun Parikh also made an albatross on the par-5 eighth hole during his round of 66 that placed him tied 56^th at even-par 140. Varun missed the cut by one shot.

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.