Golf: Vaishavi grabs two-stroke lead at Jaypee Greens as Sharmila slips

Greater Noida: Vaishavi Sinha played the only under par round on day two to grab a two-stroke lead over Sharmila Nicollet in the 13th leg of the Hero Women’s Professional Golf Tour, here today. Vaishavi carded the day’s lowest score of 1 under 71 in difficult conditions at Jaypee Greens as overnight leader Sharmila slipped to second position. [caption id=“attachment_1780613” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational Image. Reuters[/caption] Playing after a gap of over seven months, Vaishavi showed great composure and carded just one bogey on the 4th hole in the front nine. She made up for the lone error and carded two birdies on the 11th and 17th holes in the back nine. She finished the day with a score of 145. Sharmila had a bogey on the third hole and before she could recover, she stumbled into a quadruple bogey at the par-3 fifth hole. She tried her best to make a comeback with three birdies on the 8th, 11th and 13th holes but a bogey on the 16th hole did not help her cause. She finished with a score of 4 over 76 to take her total score to 147. Following Sharmila are veteran Smriti Mehra and Kapurthala golfer Gursimar Badwal who are tied third with a score of 149. Smriti struggled in the front nine as she carded four bogies on the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th holes. She also carded a double bogey on the 9th hole with a lone birdie on the 3rd hole. She played a bogey free back nine to finish the day at 5 over 77. Gursimar carded five bogies on the 2nd, 7th, 14th, 17th and 18th holes. She also carded two birdies on the 9th and 12th holes and finished the round at 3 over 75. Pune’s Shweta Galande started cautiously but faltered with five consecutive bogies on the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th holes. She tried to control her game but with bogies on the last two holes, she finished with 7 over 79. She is at fifth spot with a total score of 151. Ankita Tiwana is at sixth spot with a total score of 153. She carded seven bogies on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 8th, 9th, 17th and 18th holes. She also carded a double bogey on the 4th hole with three birdies on the 6th, 13th and 14th holes. Preetinder Kaur and Pallavi Jain are tied seventh with identical scores of 155. Saaniya Sharma and Neha Tripathi lie at tied ninth position. PTI