Golf: Shane Lowry will have to wait until tomorrow morning to put the finishing touches to his second round as he attempts to keep pace with halfway leaders Jose Manuel Lara and Mikael Lundberg.
With play suspended for the day, Lowry will resume on five under, two adrift of the clubhouse leaders. Damien McGrane leads the Irish challenge on six under but Peter Lawrie struggled to cope with the conditions as he lost his lead and fell back into a tie for 13th place.
Lara finished an impressive second round on 68 to move seven under par for the tournament and was joined by Lundberg of Sweden — who only managed 15 holes of his round before officials called it a day.
Lara, 34, picked up five birdies on the front nine with a bogey at the 15th the only blemish on a round which has seen him move firmly into contention at the midway point.
Lundberg bogeyed the sixth but still kept up with Lara by birdieing the 13th, 15th, 17th and the third after starting on the back nine but the Spaniard said he was happy with his own game despite ever-changing wind patterns.
He said: “I played really well on my back nine. I struggled a little bit early on because of the wind, but then made five birdies on my back nine, which added up to a good round. So I’m very happy.
“It (the wind) was coming from all directions, but mainly from left to right. It also made it difficult to read the putts, because you weren’t sure how much the wind was going to affect the ball. So it was very tricky, and I was happy when it died down later in the round.”
McGrane is tied with Oliver Fisher and Gary Boyd for third and felt he was lucky to go out in the afternoon session.
“We got the best of the weather, there’s no doubt about that,” he said “A round of 71 was a reasonable performance, although I probably played a bit better than that. It was funny day out there, and a lot can go wrong on a day like today.
“I made a lot of birdie chances coming in, but just couldn’t hole the putts. But I hit good putts, so I’m reasonably happy with my performance.”
Paul McGinley, whose last win on tour came six years ago – finished on four under as the leaderboard retained a green hue and was delighted with the way he played.
“Anything under par today is a pretty good score,” he admitted. “Some golf courses lend themselves to playing in the wind, but this one probably doesn’t. There’s lot of elevation changes and a lot of water, plus we didn’t really get any help from the wind, because it seemed to be blowing across us most of the time.
“So it was a tough day, and to break par was good going. I’m disappointed with the two bogeys towards the end, especially on the eighth hole, because I hit a poor drive, made a good recovery, but then failed to get up and down from a relatively easy position.”
Second round scores & totals
(Gbr & Irl unless stated, par 72)
Note: Play was suspended for the day due to a dangerous situation. 27 players to complete their second rounds will return to the course at 8.30am local time on Saturday morning
137Jose Manuel Lara (Spa) 69 68
138Gary Boyd 71 67, Damien McGrane67 71, Oliver Fisher 71 67
139Tano Goya (Arg) 73 66, Lorenzo Gagli (Ita) 69 70, Gonzalo Fdez-Castano (Spa) 71 68
140Steve Webster 70 70, Paul McGinley69 71
141 Jamie Elson 70 71, Richie Ramsay 69 72, Gary Orr 69 72, David Drysdale 69 72, Steven O'Hara 70 71, Peter Lawrie66 75
142Joakim Haeggman (Swe) 69 73, Sam Walker 70 72, Romain Wattel (Fra) 71 71, Fabrizio Zanotti (Par) 71 71, Rafael Echenique (Arg) 70 72, Thongchai Jaidee (Tha) 70 72
143Anthony Kang (USA) 73 70, Jan Are Larsen (Nor) 72 71, Fredrik Henge (Swe) 72 71, Victor Dubuisson (Fra) 67 76, James Morrison 74 69
144John Parry 71 73, Mark Tullo (Chi) 73 71, David Howell 75 69, Jaco Van Zyl (Rsa) 72 72, Clodomiro Carranza (Arg) 74 70, Graeme Storm 72 72, Joel Sjoholm (Swe) 75 69, Gaganjeet Bhullar (Ind) 70 74, Alejandro Canizares (Spa) 72 72
145Fredrik Ohlsson (Swe) 71 74, Lee Slattery 73 72, Scott Jamieson 70 75, Richard Finch 75 70, Wade Ormsby (Aus) 73 72, Ignacio Garrido (Spa) 74 71, Oskar Henningsson (Swe) 69 76, Alexandre Kaleka (Fra) 71 74, Emanuele Canonica (Ita) 74 71, Ross McGowan 74 71
146Jeev Milkha Singh (Ind) 71 75, Phillip Price 73 73, Matthew Zions (Aus) 71 75, Richard McEvoy 71 75, Lloyd Saltman 70 76, Marco Ruiz (Par) 73 73, Eirik Tage Johansen (Nor) 71 75, Pedro Oriol (Spa) 67 79
147Liam Bond 71 76, Shiv Kapur (Ind) 70 77, Miles Tunnicliff 71 76, Oscar Floren (Swe) 75 72, Jason Knutzon (USA) 74 73, Bradley Dredge 74 73
148Alvaro Velasco (Spa) 72 76, Soren Hansen (Den) 70 78, Rick Kulacz (Aus) 71 77, Alastair Forsyth 74 74, Stuart Manley 76 72, Mark Brown (Nzl) 71 77
149Brett Rumford (Aus) 73 76, Chris Wood 74 75, Magnus A Carlsson (Swe) 74 75, Robert Dinwiddie 76 73, Nick Dougherty 71 78, Tom Whitehouse 74 75, Elliot Saltman 74 75, Bernd Wiesberger (Aut) 73 76, Cesar Monasterio (Arg) 73 76
150Anthony Wall 75 75, Thorbjorn Olesen (Den) 75 75, Matthew Nixon 71 79, Markus Brier (Aut) 74 76, George Coetzee (Rsa) 73 77, Seve Benson 79 71, Michael Hoey73 77, Simon Wakefield 78 72
151Robert Jan Derksen (Ned) 77 74, Daniel Vancsik (Arg) 73 78, Jurgen Maurer (Aut) 70 81
152Richard Bland 77 75, Thomas Norret (Den) 76 76, Maarten Lafeber (Ned) 72 80
153Filip Mruzek (Cze) 78 75, Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spa) 76 77, Andrew Marshall 77 76, Lukas Tintera (Cze) 75 78, Oliver Wilson 75 78, Martin Prihoda (Cze) 78 75
154Scott Hend (Aus) 78 76, Rudolf Nechanicky (Cze) 77 77, Peter Svajlen (Svk) 78 76
155Jakub Svoboda (Cze) 80 75, Jonathan Lomas 77 78, Carlos Rodiles (Spa) 73 82, Petr Gal (Cze) 73 82
156Jarmo Sandelin (Swe) 75 81, Andrew Dodt (Aus) 80 76, Julio Zapata (Arg) 73 83
157Stanislav Matus (Cze) 76 81
158David Carter 78 80, Vojtech Dostal (Cze) 75 83
159Marek Novy (Cze) 82 77
166Viktor Skalle (Cze) 85 81
168Oliver Vaidis (Cze) 86 82
171Petr Zima (Cze) 87 84
180Peter Spacek (Svk) 86 94
