lahiri tied 4th at halfway stage

Anirban lahiri produced a brilliant finish to his second round with a hat-trick of birdies and two steady pars for a round of five-under 67 that catapulted him to seven-under and tied fourth place at the halfway stage of the PGA Championships on Saturday.Beginning the traditional ‘Moving day’, the third day of a event, lahiri came back to finish his remaining five holes of the second round and immediately rolled in three successive birdies to go with the three he had in the first 13 on Friday evening here at the Whistling Straits.

With six birdies against one bogey, his 67 also meant the best-ever round by an Indian at any Major. He bettered the score of 68, once each by Jeev Milkha Singh (2008 PGA), lahiri himself (2012 British Open) and Shiv Kapur (2013 British Open).lahiri’s tied fourth place is the best an Indian has been placed at the halfway stage of any Major.

It also put lahiri in line to go better than Jeev’s best finish by an Indian at any Major, which is tied-ninth at the 2008 PGA Championships at Oakland Hills.

lahiri rolled in birdies on fifth, sixth and seventh, before closing with steady pars on eighth and ninth holes for a round of 67.Speaking of his three birdies, lahiri, winner of Malaysian Open and Hero Indian Open this year, said, “(On) the fifth hole, I found the fairway and I hit my 3-wood just over the green, a couple yards over the back and 2-putted from there. Then on sixth, where they had the tees up, so I hit my driver, but was 10 or 15 yards was short of the green. Chipped it to about four or five feet and I holed it. And on 7 (par-3), I hit a great shot. I think that’s probably the best shot I’ve hit all of my second round, not just today. It was playing about 224 yards or so. I hit my 4-iron to about five feet. And I tapped that in. So that was a good stretch there. I think the course is playing really well.”

late Friday evening, lahiri holed three birdies against one bogey to get to two-under through 13 holes in the unfinished second round before the onset of violent thunderstorms which led to suspension of play.Starting from the 10th with a late afternoon start, lahiri may well have been even better than where he is had he not missed at least two 10-footers and two more between 13 and 16 feet for birdies. He did have a good long birdie putt from just under 24 feet on par-3 third.

At the top, Australian Matt Jones (68-65) moved into sole lead at 11-under and two clear of fellow Australian Jason Day (68-67). Jones and Day had shared the lead at 9-under with some holes still to play when second-round play was suspended.