Muirfield: After a stunning start in the tournament, ace Indian golfer Shiv Kapur found the going tough as he returned with eight bogeys and two birdies in the second round but still set to make the cut in the 142nd Open Championships here on Friday.
Kapur returned for a six-over 77 in the second round and at three-over for two rounds, he is expected to stay for the weekend. He will be somewhere in the upper half of the pack after the cut is made. He was tied for 39th after his round and the cut looked likely at five or six-over.
Kapur will become only the fourth Indian after Jyoti Randhawa (2004), Anirban Lahiri (2012) and Jeev Milkha Singh (2012) to make the cut at the British Open. Only Jeev has made the cut at the other three Majors, too. Kapur, who had stunned the golfing world with six birdies in first seven holes, saw the other side, the cruel one of the Majors, as he was four-over after six.
"Today the wind was totally opposite. So when you're standing on the tees you're trying go to figure out -- it's a lot of guesswork," he said.
"For example on the 9th hole today I've hit 3-iron off the tee. I've hit 3-iron, 6-iron. And yesterday I've hit driver, 2-iron, 8-iron, you know. So it's completely a different golf course," said Kapur of the conditions.
Yet, instead of simply melting down as many do, Kapur just hung on grimly. He managed birdies on ninth and 12th, but also gave away bogeys on 10th and 13th. But, he was still four-over for the day and one-over for the tournament, when he came to the par-five 17th, but a bogey-bogey finish set him back.
"When you get off to a bad start, you're just trying to hang on, because there's not too many birdie opportunities, so to speak, on the back nine, even though the holes playing into the wind played downwind," he said. I thought I did a pretty good job after that bad start to hang on for a while. And unfortunately I had the dreaded 'S' word (shank) on the 17th with my third shot," said Kapur.
"I had a wedge in there and I shanked it into the green, and actually did well to make a bogey. A bad drive on 18 meant a finishing bogey. But I felt I did well to hang on and keep the score for 16 holes."
Kapur was still smiling despite his putter not working. On Thursday, his putter was red hot, but today, it was the opposite.
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