Winther springs ahead of field thanks to luck of the draw in Qatar

Denmark's Jeff Winther claimed a two-shot lead at the halfway stage of the Qatar Masters after making the most of a favourable draw in Doha.

Winther began his second round at 6.45am local time on Friday and carded five birdies and a single bogey to record a second successive 67 and finish eight under par.

With the wind picking up significantly as the day went on none of the later starters were able to catch Winther, with Jamie Donaldson, Jack Senior, Darren Fichardt, Kalle Samooja and Kurt Kitayama sharing second on six under.

"I love coming back here and I have good memories from last year," said Winther, who finished a shot outside the playoff between Jorge Campillo and David Drysdale 12 months ago.

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“I really like this course, it’s great to play and the conditions are fantastic. The greens are very nice. I don’t want to jinx myself but I think they are easy to putt on. They are very true.

“The wind [got] quite severe. We were lucky. On the last three or four holes it was really starting to pick up.”

Donaldson secured the winning point for Europe in the 2014 Ryder Cup at Gleneagles but has not tasted victory since the Thailand Golf Championship on the Asian Tour in December 2015.

The 45-year-old, who had surgery on a wrist injury in late 2018, carded four birdies and one bogey in a second successive 68 and said: “I played nicely, hit a lot of good shots and gave myself quite a lot of chances.

“I’m feeling pretty good. It took a while for the wrist operation to get back to normal. I started playing decent again in the middle of last year and I’ve been playing well recently. Feeling happy, just [need] more of the same tomorrow.”

Play was suspended due to fading light at 5.40pm local time, with Joakim Lagergren, who was four under with three holes to play, one of 11 players who will have to complete their rounds on Saturday morning.

One of those is Northern Ireland's Cormac Sharvin, who lies right on the cut mark of one over with two holes to play. After a brilliant start that saw him eagle the Par-5 second to move to three under for the tournament, Sharvin carded six bogeys and two birdies to slip out to two over for his round.

Jonathan Caldwell carded a one-under 70 but his opening 75 left him outside the cut on three over, while Paul Dunne added a 78 to his opening 74 to slip down the field to 10 over.

Leaderboard

Britain and Ireland unless stated, par 71, (a) denotes amateur, play suspended with 11 players still to finish the round

134 Jeff Winther (Den) 67 67

136 Kurt Kitayama (USA) 67 69, Kalle Samooja (Fin) 65 71, Jamie Donaldson 68 68, Darren Fichardt (Rsa) 68 68, Jack Senior 68 68

137 Brandon Stone (Rsa) 69 68, Joachim B. Hansen (Den) 66 71, Thomas Pieters (Bel) 68 69, Chris Paisley 67 70, Nino Bertasio (Ita) 65 72, Fabrizio Zanotti (Pry) 67 70, Matthieu Pavon (Fra) 68 69, Garrick Higgo (Rsa) 66 71

138 Callum Shinkwin 70 68, Guido Migliozzi (Ita) 71 67, Richard McEvoy 65 73, Thomas Detry (Bel) 66 72, Scott Jamieson 67 71, Julian Suri (USA) 70 68, Lorenzo Gagli (Ita) 68 70

139 Shaun Norris (Rsa) 69 70, David Law 64 75, Shubhankar Sharma (Ind) 71 68, Hennie Du Plessis (Rsa) 65 74, Jazz Janewattananond (Tha) 69 70, Grant Forrest 71 68, Raphael Jacquelin (Fra) 70 69, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano (Esp) 69 70

140 Wilco Nienaber (Rsa) 69 71, John Catlin (USA) 70 70, Romain Langasque (Fra) 70 70, Eddie Pepperell 69 71, Gaganjeet Bhullar (Ind) 67 73, Dale Whitnell 68 72

141 Chris Wood 73 68, Antoine Rozner (Fra) 69 72, Jorge Campillo (Esp) 67 74, Alexander Bjoerk (Swe) 68 73, Sean Crocker (USA) 68 73, Francesco Laporta (Ita) 68 73, Maverick Antcliff (Aus) 69 72, Marcus Armitage 69 72, Pedro Figueiredo (Por) 67 74, Lars van Meijel (Ned) 69 72, Wil Besseling (Ned) 72 69, Yi-Keun Chang (Kor) 70 71

142 Matthias Schwab (Aut) 71 71, Ignacio Elvira (Esp) 69 73, David Drysdale 70 72, Ashley Chesters 72 70, Maximilian Kieffer (Ger) 67 75, Ricardo Santos (Por) 71 71, Alejandro Canizares (Esp) 73 69, Toby Tree 67 75, Niklas Lemke (Swe) 70 72

143 Steven Brown 69 74, Andy Sullivan 69 74, Marcus Kinhult (Swe) 70 73, Alexander Levy (Fra) 71 72, Benjamin Hebert (Fra) 71 72, Jordan Smith 69 74, Richie Ramsay 69 74, Justin Walters (Rsa) 73 70, David Coupland 69 74, Rhys Enoch 69 74

144 Joost Luiten (Ned) 69 75, (a) Shergo Al Kurdi (Jor) 68 76, Edoardo Molinari (Ita) 69 75, Adrian Meronk (Pol) 72 72, Darius van Driel (Ned) 70 74

145 Adrian Otaegui (Esp) 69 76, Pablo Larrazabal (Esp) 72 73, George Coetzee (Rsa) 67 78, Sebastian Soederberg (Swe) 73 72, Stephen Gallacher 70 75, Wade Ormsby (Aus) 69 76, Aaron Rai 73 72, Zander Lombard (Rsa) 73 72, Soeren Kjeldsen (Den) 72 73, James Morrison 75 70, Kyong-Jun Moon (Kor) 70 75, Benjamin Poke (Den) 71 74, Gregory Havret (Fra) 70 75, Shiv Chawrasia (Ind) 70 75, Laurie Canter 71 74, Jonathan Caldwell 75 70

146 Rasmus Hoejgaard (Den) 74 72, Scott Hend (Aus) 74 72, Lucas Bjerregaard (Den) 77 69, Haotong Li (Chn) 71 75, Ayoub Lguirati (Mor) 75 71, Masahiro Kawamura (Jpn) 72 74, Oliver Wilson 71 75, Haydn Porteous (Rsa) 74 72, Richard Bland 70 76, Sebastian Heisele (Ger) 70 76, Sebastian Garcia (Esp) 69 77, Garrick Porteous 69 77

147 Justin Harding (Rsa) 70 77, David Howell 73 74, Calum Hill 72 75, Robin Roussel (Fra) 73 74, Tae-Hee Lee (Kor) 75 72, Aaron Cockerill (Can) 73 74, Svn-Hwan Kim (Kor) 76 71

148 Ross McGowan 70 78, Nicolas Colsaerts (Bel) 71 77, (a) Saleh Al Kaabi (Qat) 73 75, Tapio Pulkkanen (Fin) 75 73, Joel Stalter (Fra) 73 75

149 Daan Huizing (Ned) 77 72, Kristoffer Reitan (Nor) 74 75

150 Alvaro Quiros (Esp) 76 74, Ross Fisher 76 74, Rikard Karlberg (Swe) 70 80, Lee Slattery 75 75

151 Gavin Green (Mal) 72 79, Oliver Farr 73 78

152 Jean-Baptiste Gonnet (Fra) 75 77, Paul Dunne 74 78

153 Robin Sciot-Siegrist (Fra) 75 78, Carlos Pigem (Esp) 78 75, Adrien Saddier (Fra) 75 78, (a) Ruan Jordaan (Rsa) 76 77

154 Oliver Fisher 78 76

156 Renato Paratore (Ita) 78 78

166 Ali Al-Shahrani (Qat) 82 84