St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland, 18-07-2015
Anirban Lahiri in tied 14th at halfway stage of The Open, emerges dark horse
India’s Anirban Lahiri emerged as one of the dark horses going into the last two rounds of The Open. Lahiri (69-70), who totalled five-under-139 for the first two rounds, occupied tied 14th place, five shots behind leader Dustin Johnson of the United States, as the weather-affected round two finally came to an end in St. Andrews on Saturday.
The Open Championship will witness a Monday finish for the first time since 1988 after gusty wind conditions disrupted play for much of the day on Saturday.
The second round of the world’s oldest Major could not be completed on schedule earlier on Friday as more than three hours of play were lost due to torrential morning rain. It did resume briefly on Saturday morning until the howling 45 mph gale eventually forced play to be suspended for more than 10 hours at the Old Course.
Second round leader Dustin Johnson was one of the 39 players who resumed their round at 7 am local time on Saturday. A total of 80 players eventually made the halfway cut of even-par-144.
Anirban Lahiri, a seven-time Asian Tour winner, is currently the second highest-placed Asian in the field after Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama who returned a six-under-66 in round two to be tied 10th at six-under-138.
Interestingly, Jordan Spieth, the winner of the year’s first two Majors, also shares 14th place with Anirban and five others.
Lahiri will now be looking to rewrite the records relating to the best finish by an Indian at a Major and at The Open with some solid performances over the last two days.
The Indian star tees off with Australian Geoff Ogilvy in round three on Sunday at 1350 hrs local time (1820 hrs IST).
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