By IANS,
Wentworth (England) : Jyoti Randhawa turned on the magic with his putter after recovering from an early bogey as he found three birdies over last six holes to come in with a four-under 68 for a two-day total of three-under 141 and a place in the top-20 at the midway stage of the BMW PGA Championship here.
However, there was not much cheer for the other three Indians Friday as Shiv Kapur (76), S.S.P. Chowrasia (77) and Jeev Milkha Singh (74) missed the halfway cut.
Kapur in particular must be ruing his costly late bogeys on 16th and 17th as he missed the cut by two. Chowrasia was never able to recover from his horrendous start that saw him go four-over for first four holes with a double bogey start followed by bogeys on third and fourth and he also missed the cut two. Both tied for 80th as 70 players made the grade for weekend action.
Jeev who left himself far too much to do in the second round after his first round 78 could no better than a 74 and was eight over for two rounds and in a lowly 121st place.
Randhawa, who missed last two cuts after a great start to the season earlier on, had five birdies against just one bogey.
Randhawa, who had four top-10s on the European Tour besides a runner-up finish on Asian Tour, dropped a shot on the third for the second day running. He recovered quickly with a birdie on fourth and another birdie on seventh saw him turn in one-under. Birdies on 13th, 16th and 18th saw him rise through the leaderboard and come up to 20th setting him up nicely for the weekend.
Paul McGinley of Scotland increased his lead at the top with a sensational back nine in six-under 31 that included an birdie-eagle finish besides three other birdies as his second round 66 included six birdies, an eagle and two bogeys on the first and ninth.
McGinley rounded off the day with an eagle on the 538 yard 18th as he holed from 20 feet after a radar-like approach shot landed perfectly on the green. Put alongside his first round 65, it gave him a 36-hole record total of 13-under 131 for the first half of the tournament.
McGinley was four adrift of Robert Karlsson (69) and Miles Tunnicliff (65) who were at nine-under 136 for two rounds. Three players Marcus Fraser (69), Soren Kjeldsen (65) and Oliver Fisher (66) were tied for fourth at eight-under 138.
As for Asian Tour stars, Thongchai Jaidee, a two-time Asian Tour No.1, improved from his opening round’s 72 by firing a 69 in the second round at Wentworth Club to join Randhawa, also a former Asian No.1, at tied 20th at 141.
They are 10 shots behind runaway leader Paul McGinley, who leads the tournament by four strokes.
Playing in the last group of the day, England’s Robert Dinwiddie rewrote the course record of 65 by two shots with a stunning 63 which saw him move from 129th place to 20th.