Pune: Viraj Madappa submitted a second consecutive sub-par round of 70 and managed to stay a stroke adrift of the field at the end of the second round of the IGU All India Junior Amateur Golf Championship being played at the Oxford Golf and Country Club here on Wednesday. The Kolkata lad’s aggregate for 36 holes was 3-under 141 even as Delhi’s Manu Gandas with a brilliant round of 3-under 69 was breathing on his neck.

Piyush Sangwan and Feroz Singh Garewal were four shots behind the leader at 145 while Veer Ahlawat, Yuvraj Sandhu and Tutul Ali were all tied for the sixth place at 148.

Arjun Prasad was leading in Category B while also being placed tied-ninth overall. Karandeep Kochar was second at 154 while Pratheek Nagaprasad and Kartik Sharma were tied for the third spot at 155. Shreyas Chandra was fifth at 157.

Viraj, except for a blemish on the par-4 fifth, kept a clean slate while also making birdies on the fourth and ninth holes to take the turn at 1-under. A similar story followed on the back nine where he made birdies on the 11th and 15th while making a bogey on the 13th. Manu meanwhile had a brilliant front nine where he made four birdies on the 2nd, 4th, 7th and ninth while adding two more on the 11th and 13th to be 6-under for the day. However consecutive bogeys on the 14th and 15th and one more on the 17th dashed his hopes of emerging as the leader.


“The course is playing long and tough. I am pretty satisfied with my round even though I made a couple of mistakes,” said Viraj after the round. “It will be a hard battle for the title for sure as the scores are pretty tight. I am planning to take it hole by hole and round by round,” added the leader.

Top scores after 36 holes

Category (A&B)

141 Viraj Madappa (71, 70); 142 Manu Gandas (73, 69); 145 Piyush Sangwan (74, 71), Feroz Singh Garewal (73, 72); 148 Veer Ahlawat (75, 73), Yuvraj Sandhu (73, 75), Tutul Ali (72, 76); 149 Shubham Narain (76, 73); 150 Jairaj Singh Sandhu (76, 74), Arjun Prasad (75, 75); 151 Rohan Dhole Patil (77, 74)

Category B

150 Arjun Prasad (75, 75); 154 Karandeep Kochar (78, 76); 155 Pratheek Nagaprasad (78, 77), Kartik Sharma (76, 79); 157 Shreyas Chandra (77, 80); 158 Bhav Sharma (79, 79); 159 Saarthak Chhibber (81, 78), Udayjit Bhalotia (80, 79), Karan Pratap Singh (78, 81); 160 Karanveer Singha (83, 77)