Grant Forrest and Scott Jamieson launched a second day offensive in round two of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship to barge their way into the top-10 at the halfway stage in the Middle East.
While overnight leader Shane Lowry remained the man to catch after adding a battling 70 to his course-record equalling 62 for a one stroke advantage over the South African pairing of Louis Oosthuizen and Richard Sterne, Forrest and Jamieson had a 65 and a 66 respectively to surge up the order.
Craigielaw tour rookie Forrest, with two top-10s on the main circuit this season, bolstered his push with seven birdies in nine holes from the seventh to move to eight-under while Jamieson birdied four of his first five holes in a sprightly six-under card to finish a shot better off on nine-under.
At the head of affairs, Lowry recovered from a poor start to cement his place at the top of the pile in the £5.4million Rolex Series event.
The Irishman saw his three-shot overnight lead wiped out as he bogeyed the second and third, but the 31-year-old bounced back with birdies at the fifth, seventh, 12th and 15th to remain on course for his first win since the 2015 WGC Bridgestone Invitational.
“I’m really happy with that,” said Lowry who was sitting on the 12-under mark. “I knew today was going to be a bit of a weird day after shooting such a low score yesterday. I just tried to go out and play like I played.
“Some of the shots early on were pretty horrendous, so I battled back and hit some really nice shots out there and hit some in close and made some birdies. I was happy with myself.
Oosthuizen has finished no worse than seventh in his last three starts, a run which includes a first victory in his national Open in Johannesburg.
“It meant a lot to me,” Oosthuizen said after a 68 containing six birdies and two bogeys.
“It was one that I really wanted and always had scheduling problems to play it.
“It was always up against a big family holiday we have, and last year was the first time that I could actually play it in the last six, seven years, and I was delighted to win.”
Defending champion Tommy Fleetwood, who is seeking a third straight win in the event, birdied the 18th to make the cut on the mark of three-under-par.
“It was nice to get one in,” Fleetwood said after his 72. “My putting was pretty awful today. The things that I wanted to do better from yesterday, I did, but just a couple of short ones were missed and then I just holed nothing at any makeable range.”
Richie Ramsay posted a two-under 70 for a four-under tally while Oban rookie Robert MacIntyre made the cut on the limit after a 71.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel