Indian duo of Diksha Dagar and Vani Kapoor were well placed at Tied-third midway through the Big Green Egg Open golf tournament.
Diksha, who was lying third after the first round 70, added a 71, while Vani, who opened with 71, shot 70 in the second round. They are now five-under and three shots behind the leader, Whitney Hillier.
Hillier shot a second successive round of four-under 68 and is now eight-under at the halfway mark. The 31-year-old Hillier is chased by Sarah Schober (67-70) at the top of the leader board.
Among other Indians, Amandeep Drall (73-72) at T-30 and Ridhima Dilawari (74-76) at T-45 also made the cut. Neha Tripathi (79-76) missed the cut.
In the second round, Kapoor registered 15 consecutive pars after starting on the tenth tee, before finding two birdies in her final three holes to shift up the leader board.
“I played pretty solid, I was hitting fairways and greens but didn’t give myself enough chances - I wasn’t hitting it that close - but I was just hoping that sometimes a putt would drop and they did on the 7th and 8th so that was nice,” she said.
“It’s a very tight course and you have to place your ball and be very careful, so that’s what my plan was - to play fairway, green, fairway, green - and hopefully the putts drop.
“I’m a very accurate player and don’t miss too many fairways, so I guess that’s what’s helping me out here. Its one of the tightest courses we played at it seems to be suiting me.” For the second day running Dagar came flying out the blocks with early birdies on the eleventh and twelfth, putting her name at the top, before dropping a shot on the par-five 15th.
A birdie on the 17th soon got her back on track, only for a dropped shot on the ninth - her final hole of the day - seeing her sit three shots off the lead with the weekend still to come.
“The difference today was that my putts didn’t go in, and I had troubles with my club selection and some of my shots were short,” Dagar said.
“I started really well and made some long putts but then I made some silly mistakes later in my round. I had some trouble on the first par-five on the back nine and then had some bad breaks on my final two holes.
“I had a good bunker shot on the ninth that lipped out, then the putt was breaking the opposite way. Some of the greens were tricky today.
“It’s very good for me and Vani to be near the top, I’m always happy to see Indians doing well, for her to be on five-under as well, that’s good golf.” Amateurs Alexandra Försterling and Mayka Hoogeboom share fifth spot with Nuria Iturrioz as Saturday approaches, with all three catching the eye on a tough day for scoring in The Netherlands.
