Pune: Bangalore’s Udayan Mane played at Poona Golf Club as he is playing at his home course - Karnataka Golf Association, by hitting an impressive 6-under for the total of 141 (76, 65) to take the lead in second round of Maharashtra Open Amateur Golf Championship. Khalin Joshi, winner of last year’s Maharashtra Open, finished second with level par score for the total of 143 (72, 71) while coming from behind, Jamshedpur’s Karan Taunk also had a level par round to end the day with third place at 144 (73,71).
Another Bangalorian S. Chikkarangappa, who was nowhere in the contention yesterday, shot 2-under for the total of 145 (76, 69) for a tie along with Delhi’s Honey Baisoya who was third in the last round at 145 (71, 74). They both finished fourth and fifth respectively. The leader of day one, K. Raghav Bhandari slipped to 7th spot after shooting 7-over for the total of 146 (68, 78).
43 out of 78 players have made the cut at 14-over.
The 20-year-old Mane has been playing golf for about 7 years and with the hands on experience of this course, he started the day with a birdie on 1st and then he didn’t stop the count as he kept hitting birdies on 7th, 9th, 10th, 12th, 14th and 18th. He also had a lone bogey on 13th which didn’t make any difference to his best score of the day.
Mane who looks like half Marathi and half Kannada actually belongs to Maharashtra but he has lived in Bangalore all through his life. The KGA’s boy said, “I have started taking my game seriously only 6 months ago when I met my coach, Vijay Divecha. Now, I live golf almost in all spheres of my life. I start my day with yoga and then straightaway head to the Touché Golf Academy to exercise and then practice with Anirban lahiri and Abhishek Jha. All these things really helped me to be in a system and I am looking forward to take the title after two days.”
The sensation of Indian Amateur Golf Tour, S. Chikkarangappa came back in his form after hitting two-under for the day. Chikka who seems very clear in his mind all the time, said, “I always like to give myself a trouble in the beginning of any tournament and love to beat the leader by a good margin of strokes. As far as this event is concerned, I realised yesterday that I am not hitting many regulations and that’s what I started today after 4th hole. I just need a good start in the next two days and I am surely going to stick to my game.”
Chikka had a bad start as he hit a bogey on 1st , 3rd and then 17th while he had quite a good shots as he birdied the 5th, 14th while his best was an eagle on 7th.
When asked about the mental pressure, Chikka said, “No matter how mentally strong I am but I just can not write the bad score of my playing partner. For example, I gave Kanishk Madan’s scorecard to my caddy after 15th hole because it was kind of giving me negativity every time I was writing the scores. I like to think positive after each shot I play and that makes me on the top of the leader board almost every time.”
