Top amateur Aryan Roopa Anand carved out a six-shot lead over the chasing pack on day two of Final Qualifying in the Tata Steel PGTI Qualifying School 2023 at Kolkata’s Tollygunge Club on Wednesday.
The Bangalore-based Anand fired a brilliant second round of seven under par 63 on the par-70 Tolly course to sit on a two-day total of 13-under 127, leaving a pack of seasoned professional trailing in his wake.
Another Bangalore golfer, C, Muniyappa, Faridabad’s Karan Pratap Singh, Pranav Mardikar of Pune and Nepal’s Sukra Bahadur Rai were tied for second place on totals of seven-under 133, the PGTI said.
The two-day cut fell at five-over 145 and from a starting field of 126, the top 81 players including 13 amateurs made the cut in the hunt for the coveted full status on the Professional Golf Tour of India.
Leading by a shot after the opening day, Aryan Roopa Anand (64-63) extended his advantage and in fact improved on his total of Tuesday by one shot. The 21-year-old was in dominant form and imposed himself on the proceedings for a second day running with nine birdies against two dropped shots.
The Tarun Sardesai trainee opened with a rash of birdies, picking up shots on the second, third, fourth and fifth holes with putts ranging between 12 and 25 feet. Anand, who made more long putts on day two than compared to day one, also had a string of birdies towards the finish on the 13th, 14th, 15th and 17th holes.
Aryan said later, “It was a better scoring day for me today but I felt that I drove it better on day one. However, I continued to keep the errors to a minimum and made more long conversions today, sinking it six times from a range of 12 to 25 feet.
“I capitalised well on some of the scoring holes and the par-5s. The performance in the first two rounds gives me good confidence going into the last two days but I need to continue doing what I’ve done well so far.”
Among the four players placed tied second, Pranav Mardikar had the best score of 64. He made two eagles during his round.
At the end of round four, the top 34 players will earn their full cards for the 2023 PGTI season.