September 27, 2013. September 27, 2013. None of the worthy Indian golfers could survive through the halfway cut at the Asia-Pacific Panasonic Open golf tournament in Osaka on Friday.
Three of the Indians missed the cut by one shot at the $1.48 million event sanctioned by the Asian Tour and Japan Golf Tour.
Anirban Lahiri, who tried to improve on a shot of 79 on the day one to 68 in the second, failed to make over the cut mark. Jyoti Randhawa (76-71) and Digvijay Singh (76-71) were also eliminated with totals of 147, just one outside the cut mark of 146.
C. Muniyappa (79-70), Shiv Kapur (75-75) and Himmat Rai (76-74) also fell apart and missed the cut.
Anirban Lahiri tried his best to overcome his first day’s shorcoming, as he began the day two with birdies and then gained a stroke at the seventh. But back-to-back bogeys forced him back to one-under for the day.
Without losing his cool Lahiri tried again with three birdies between 13th and 16th. At that stage when he was just inside the cut line, but a closing bogey smashed his chances .
Kapur started from tenth and double bogeyed the 11th and then closed with three bogeys in last four holes.
Pariya Junhasavasdikul of Thailand leads after two days of play, he sank a clutch birdie putt on the last hole. The Thai, who started from the 10th tee, struggled to get his round going and needed a 15 footer birdie putt to send him to the top of the leader board at the Ibaraki Country Club.
Thai golfer posted a one-under 70 to hold a one-shot lead from overnight leader Shingo Katayama of Japan, who struggled to a two-over 73.
Tetsuji Hiratsuka of Japan, who won the 2011 Asia-Pacific Panasonic Open, battled to a 66 to share third position with Masahiro Kawamura.
Rory Hie (69) of Indonesia was a further shot back alongside Young Han Song (69) of Korea, Yoshikazu Haku (66) of Japan and Brad Kennedy (66) of Australia.
The dreary display by Indians will also affect their rankings on Asia Tour Order of Merit. The Panasonic Open Champion of 2011(played in India), Anirban Lahiri is ranked seventh and Shiv Kapur is ninth on the Asian Tour Merit list. They might miss the race for CIMB Classic in Malaysia, a tournament jointly sanctioned by Asian and US PGA Tour. Only top 10 on the Order of Merit will be able to make it to Malaysia.
Source: Inputs from The Hindu
