Bangalore: When Manu Gandas speaks, one can barely hear him. But on the golf course, he has a steely determination. The Gurgaon-based lad shot a brilliant 4-under par 68 despite to climb to the top of the leader board at the end of the half-way stage of the IGU Southern India Junior Boys Golf Championship being played at the KGA course here on Wednesday. Manu who had a opening round of 73, was 3-under 141 for 36 holes and one shot ahead of overnight leader Tapendra Ghai who signed a card of 2-under 70 today.

Feroz Singh Garewal was third at 146 while Viraj Madappa was fourth at 148. Jairaj Singh Sandhu and Prakhar Asawa shared the fifth place at 149 while Yuvraj Sandhu was sixth at 151. Arjun Prasad was leading in Category B with a two-day total of 152 with Jaiveer Singh trailing him by four shots. K Sidharth was third at 157 while Karandeep Kochar and Arjun Puri were tied for the fourth place at 159 while Tanvir Kahlon was sixth at 161.

Manu, a tenth tee starter made a dream start with birdies on the first two holes and continued in the same vein saving pars along the way before making another pair of birdies on the 14th and 15th holes to be 4-under after six holes. However consecutive bogeys on the last two holes of his front nine reduced his score to 2-under. On the back nine, after a birdie on the first hole, Manu saved one more stroke on the par-5 fifth hole. He was careful not to commit any mistakes as he signed off with a clean slate on his return journey.

“I was hitting the ball really well and saved some good pars,” said the leader. “The back to back bogeys on my front nine bogged me down a bit. However on the walk from the 18th green to the 1st tee, I thought I would not commit such mistakes,” said Manu.

Top scores after 36 holes

Category A

141 Manu Gandas (73, 68); 142 Tapendra Ghai (72, 70); 146 Feroz Singh Garewal (75, 71); 148 Viraj Madappa (73, 75); 149 Jairaj Singh Sandhu (75, 74), Prakhar Asawa (73, 76); 151 Yuvraj Sandhu (77, 74); 153 Shubham Narain (79, 74), Varun Parikh (75, 78), Piyush Sangwan (74, 79); 154 Kartikey Vashist (80, 74), Anant Singh Ahlawat (78, 76), Arjun Malik (75, 79)

Category B

152 Arjun Prasad (78, 74); 156 Jaiveer Singh (77, 79); 157 K Sidharth (78, 79); 159 Karandeep Kochar (81, 78), Arjun Puri (80, 79); 161 Tanvir Kahlon (82, 79); 162 Kartik Sharma (83, 79); 163 Saarthak Chhibber (82, 81); 164 Kunal Naidu (84, 80); 165 Saptak Talwar (85, 80), Ranveer Grewal (82, 83)