Golf: While the old guard of Irish golf are facing the prospect of an unscheduled couple of days kicking their heels, Graeme McDowell heads into yet another weekend of a big event at the business end of the leaderboard.
The Rathmore man, chasing Martin Kaymer hard as the Race to Dubai enters the home straight, will start tomorrow’s third round of the Singapore Open just three behind halfway leader Adam Scott.
McDowell, who was among some 108 players who returned to the Sentosa Golf Club early this morning to finish their weather-hit first round, resumed on five under and swiftly set about climbing up the standings.
Ireland’s Ryder Cup hero picked up shots at each of the first four holes before he lost momentum with a bogey at the fifth. Another birdie on the 13th was again given back to the course and McDowell would sign for a 68 and a nine under total.
That left him three adrift of two-time winner Adam Scott, who surged to the top with a second consecutive six-under 65 for 12 under, while defending champion Ian Poulter finished on 10 under. .
Scott, who won the event in 2005 and 2006, produced a blistering 29 on the Tanjong course's front nine but stuttered coming home. Poulter roared into contention with a 29 of his own, on the back nine at Tanjong, putting the exclamation mark on a round of 63 with a snaking, 100-foot putt on the last.
McDowell shares third place with Fredrik Andersson Hed, Kyung-nam Kang and Joost Luiten. Michael Hoey moved through the field with a 67 to finish on six under but Gareth Maybin, who headed the Irish challenge in the opening round, could only manage a one over 72 today and dropped to five under.
With 28 players still to complete their second rounds, the cut has yet to be decided but Padraig Harrington, Darren Clarke and Paul McGinley are on the wrong side of the number as it stands.
Of the three, Harrington (two under) has the best opportunity to keep himself busy over the weekend but will need at least one birdie in his final three holes. Clarke, also with three to play, is a shot further back while McGinley (seven over) won’t even be able to book an early flight home as he has six holes of his second round remaining.
Scott has no such concerns and the Australian was able to reflect on a job well done despite a pedestrian finish.
"It was a good day overall. It was a long day - 30 holes of golf - so I'm pleased with the outcome overall," he said after his round. "It was a shame to slow down a bit on the back nine but that's golf I suppose.”
Scott said that despite his sensational run on the front nine he never really gave much thought about a sub-60 round.
"With nine holes to play you can't really be thinking about that and when I turned into the back nine I knew I wouldn't be that close today."
Spain's Ignacio Garrido had made the best of the early risers to grab a one-shot lead after the first round. The 38-year-old flirted with a 59 before settling for a nine-under 62 alongside Chris Wood and Kim Bi-o of South Korea.
However, Garrido found life much more difficult on the Serapong course and plummeted down the leaderboard with an eight-over 79 and is likely to miss the cut.
Two separate par-71 courses are being used for the first time with the 204-man field playing a round on each and those making the cut completing the final 36 holes on Serapong.
US Masters champion Phil Mickelson, desperate to finish his second round and avoid another early start on Saturday, played the final hole in pitch darkness. The left-hander had returned to the course early on Friday to put the finishing touches to a first-round 67, but struggled on Serapong and ended six shots off the pace .
"We were fortunate to get finished," he said. "It was a little bit windier today and conditions were tougher and I shot two under on the Serapong course. But the main thing is that I'm really pleased to get in, to be the last group to finish tonight, and that'll give me a bit more time to get prepared properly for tomorrow's third round."
US PGA Championship winner Kaymer carded matching 68's to trail the leader by six shots.
Latest second round scores & totals Gbr & Irl unless stated, Irish in bold par 71)
* Note: the second round of Singapore Open 2010 was suspended due to darkness and a total of 28 players will resume their round at 7.30am (local time) tomorrow
The Serapong
134 Rikard Karlberg (Swe) 64 70
135 Bi-o Kim (Kor) 63 72, Jamie Donaldson 66 69
136 Tony Carolan (Aus) 66 70, Chris Wood 63 73, Markus Brier (Aut) 65 71, Raphael Jacquelin (Fra) 66 70, Hiroshi Iwata (Jpn) 66 70
137 Scott Hend (Aus) 64 73, Gareth Maybin 65 72, Keith Horne (Rsa) 65 72, Scott Strange (Aus) 65 72, Johan Edfors (Swe) 66 71
138 Peter Lawrie 67 71, Mardan Mamat (Sin) 68 70, Pablo Larrazabal (Spa) 68 70, Digvijay Singh (Ind) 69 69
139 Anthony Kang (USA) 66 73, Scott Barr (Aus) 64 75
140 Ashun Wu (Chn) 67 73, Alastair Forsyth 67 73, Chapchai Nirat (Tha) 66 74, Danny Chia (Mal) 67 73, Mark Foster 69 71, Chao Li (Chn) 71 69
141 Ashok Kumar (Ind) 70 71, Ignacio Garrido (Spa) 62 79, Rhys Davies 73 68, Simon Griffiths 69 72, Simon Khan 68 73
142 Hennie Otto (Rsa) 67 75, Chinnarat Phadungsil (Tha) 66 76, Felipe Aguilar (Chi) 69 73, Jbe Kruger (Rsa) 71 71, Richard Finch 65 77, Niclas Fasth (Swe) 71 71, Ted Oh (Kor) 66 76, Jyoti Randhawa (Ind) 69 73
143 Robert Karlsson (Swe) 68 75, Kang-Chun Wu (Chn) 71 72, Marcus Fraser (Aus) 69 74
144 Jeppe Huldahl (Den) 69 75, Nicholas Fung (Mal) 67 77, Wei-Huang Wu (Chn) 69 75, Kodai Ichihara (Jpn) 68 76, S Sivachandran (Mal) 70 74, Sung Lee (Pkr) 71 73, Ross McGowan 70 74
145 Young jin Kim (Kor) 65 80, Lu sen Lien (Tpe) 70 75, Wen-hong Lin (Chn) 70 75, Guido Van Der Valk (Ned) 70 75, Jose Manuel Lara (Spa) 68 77, Young Nam (Kor) 68 77
146 Prom Meesawat (Tha) 71 75, James Kingston (Rsa) 73 73, Shaaban Hussin (Mal) 75 71, Chris Rodgers 73 73, Manav Jaini (Ind) 71 75, Shamim Khan (Ind) 71 75, Thomas Levet (Fra) 72 74
147 Gregory Foo (Sin) 73 74, Rafael Echenique (Arg) 74 73
148 Richard Moir (Aus) 71 77, Thanyakorn Khrongpha (Tha) 68 80, Panupol Pittayarat (Tha) 73 75, Artemio-hiromasa Murakami (Phi) 69 79, Quincy Quek (Sin) 71 77, Shiv Shankar Prasad Chowrasia (Ind) 72 76
149 Matthew Rosenfeld (USA) 74 75, Wisut Artjanawat (Tha) 74 75, Thammanoon Srirot (Tha) 70 79
150 Gaurav Ghei (Ind) 72 78
151 Corey Harris (USA) 71 80, Anirban Lahiri (Ind) 70 81
152 Vinod Kumar (Ind) 69 83
153 Johnson Poh (Sin) 74 79, Kenneth Ferrie 68 85
154 Edgar Oh (Sin) 75 79
The Tanjong
130 Adam Scott (Aus) 65 65
132 Ian Poulter 69 63
133 Graeme McDowell 65 68, Kyung-nam Kang (Kor) 66 67, Fredrik Andersson Hed (Swe) 68 65
134 Jeev Milkha Singh (Ind) 70 64, Prayad Marksaeng (Tha) 69 65, Wen-chong Liang (Chn) 69 65
135 Gregory Bourdy (Fra) 70 65, John Huh (Kor) 70 65
136 Yih-Shin Chan (Tpe) 68 68, Martin Kaymer (Ger) 68 68, Rafael Cabrera Bello (Spa) 67 69, Michael Hoey 69 67
137 Rahil Gangjee (Ind) 70 67, Steve Webster 72 65, Anders Hansen (Den) 71 66, Nick Dougherty 65 72, Mars Pucay (Phi) 72 65, Jason Knutzon (USA) 69 68
138 Francesco Molinari (Ita) 69 69, Daniel Vancsik (Arg) 72 66, Christian Nilsson (Swe) 73 65, David Drysdale 68 70, Colin Montgomerie 70 68, Gaganjeet Bhullar (Ind) 70 68, Wen-Tang Lin (Tpe) 70 68, Antonio Lascuna (Phi) 70 68
139 Mikael Lundberg (Swe) 71 68, Thomas Aiken (Rsa) 69 70, Jay Bayron (Phi) 72 67, Shiv Kapur (Ind) 71 68, Peter Hedblom (Swe) 72 67, Ricardo Gonzalez (Arg) 71 68, Marcus Both (Aus) 70 69, Alexander Noren (Swe) 72 67, Tetsuji Hiratsuka (Jpn) 74 65, Shane Lowry 73 66, Tano Goya (Arg) 70 69, Hyung-sung Kim (Kor) 72 67
140 Robert Jan Derksen (Ned) 73 67, Richie Ramsay 72 68, Charl Schwartzel (Rsa) 70 70, Rick Kulacz (Aus) 72 68, David Horsey 71 69, Unho Park (Aus) 69 71
141 Juvic Pagunsan (Phi) 70 71, Tetsuya Haraguchi (Jpn) 71 70, David Howell 69 72, Thomas Bjorn (Den) 73 68, Mark Brown (Nzl) 70 71, Namchok Tantipokakul (Tha) 72 69
142 Christian Cevaer (Fra) 72 70, Arjun Atwal (Ind) 72 70, Fabrizio Zanotti (Par) 74 68, Simon Dyson 73 69, Adam Blyth (Aus) 76 66
143 Ben Leong (Mal) 74 69, Zaw Moe (Kor) 70 73, Ben Fox (USA) 74 69, Athaphon Prathumanee (Tha) 71 72, Gavin Flint (Aus) 74 69, Mark Purser (Nzl) 70 73
144 Seung-yul Noh (Kor) 73 71, David s Johnson (USA) 72 72, Soren Hansen (Den) 74 70, Oliver Wilson 71 73, Eng-Wah Poh (Sin) 76 68, Thaworn Wiratchant (Tha) 72 72mc
145 Himmat Rai (Ind) 78 67, Justin Han (Sin) 74 71, Dong Su (Chn) 75 70
146 Panuwat Muenlek (Tha) 73 73, Angelo Que (Phi) 73 73
147 Gerald Rosales (Phi) 75 72, Madasaamy Murugiah (Sin) 75 72
148 C Muniyappa (Ind) 73 75, Jerome Ng (Sin) 76 72
149 Iain Steel (Mal) 75 74, Graeme Storm 73 76
150 Michael Jonzon (Swe) 74 76, Oliver Fisher 80 70
151 Gary Murphy 79 72
152 James Morrison 79 73