Golf: Only Kapur survives cut at Hamburg

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Hamburg/Omaha, July 28: Shiv Kapur was the lone Indian standing, carding a flawless eagle-spurred five-under 67 to leapfrog to tied sixth spot, after his illustrious compatriots Jeev Milkha Singh, Jyoti Randhawa and Gaurav Ghei, all fell by the wayside after the second round at the Players' Championship of Europe in Hamburg.

Overnight tied 61st, Kapur, who has managed to make the cut only once in his previous five outings, was in his elements yesterday. He opened account with a superb eagle on the par-five third hole. He gained another stroke on the sixth and made the turn at three-under.

Successive birdies on the 14 and 15th holes saw Kapur returning day's second best card and jump a whopping 55 places up the leaderboard.

At the halfway stage of the European Tour event, the 25-year-old Indian was aggregating six-under 138, three strokes off the pace jointly held by Englishmen Zane Scotland (68) and Lee Slattery (69).

The other Indians, however, failed to advance to the weekend action and while Gaurav Ghei (74) and Randhawa (73) were done in by late bogeys, both missing the cut by a stroke, Jeev was never in the reckoning as he carded a horrendous 79 to slide to the bottom.

Meanwhile at Nationwide Tour's Cox Classic tourney in Omaha, Nebraska, Arjun Atwal returned a vastly improved two-under 69 but that couldn't prevent him from missing the cut at the 650,000 event.

The orlando-based Indian aggregated two-over 144 in two rounds where as the cut was applied at five-under.

American Roland Thatcher fired eight-under 63 yesterday to take the lead with 15-under 127 while compatriot Scott Sterling (68) stayed at second with just a couple of strokes off the pace.

UNI