Kapur ends round two in tied 24^th, six strokes off the lead

Muirfield, Scotland, July 19, 2013: India’s Shiv Kapur, dropped from overnight tied fourth to tied 24^th place after shooting a six-over-77 in the second round of the 142^nd Open Championships in Muirfield, Scotland. The 31-year-old however, made his first cut at a Major with relative ease on a high-scoring day that saw some big names including World No. 2 Rory McIlroy and US Open champion Justin Rose fall by the wayside.

Kapur’s (68-77) second round of 77 featured two birdies against eight bogeys and took his total to three-over-145. The Delhi golfer trails the leader Miguel Angel Jimenez (68-71) of Spain by six shots. World no. 1 Tiger Woods (69-71) is in tied second along with fellow American Dustin Johnson, Englishman Lee Westwood and Swede Henrik Stenson, one stroke behind the leader.

The cut fell at eight-over-150. Eighty-two professionals and two amateurs made the cut.

Kapur, playing in his second Major, admitted that he could not help feeling ecstasy and agony in so short a period, yet he kept his composure. “On a course where scores have been tough and conditions so demanding, to be three-over is alright,” he said.

From six-under after nine on the first day, Shiv ended at three-under. Then on Friday he went six-over for the day and ended at three-over for 36 holes. Yet he was in the top half of the players who will play over the final two rounds and he has enough chance to improve on the best finish-ever by an Indian at tied 27^th achieved by Jyoti Randhawa way back in 2004.

Kapur also became 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 struggled from the start after four bogeys on the first six holes. “I went into the bunkers far too often and had to keep guessing the wind direction as it kept changing. It was like playing over two different courses over two days. But then that’s links golf. It’s exciting and yet very challenging and frustrating.”

With his score at four-over after six, Shiv sank birdies on the ninth and 12^th and dropped bogeys on the 10^th and 13^th to stay at four-over till the 17^th tee. He then signed off the day with a bogey-bogey finish on the last two holes.

“Today the wind was totally opposite. So when you're standing on the tees you're trying to figure out -- it's a lot of guesswork. For example, on the ninth hole today I've hit 3-iron off the tee followed by a 6-iron. Yesterday on the same hole, I hit driver, 2-iron, 8-iron, you know. So it's a completely different golf course,” said Kapur of the conditions.

He added, “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. I thought I did a pretty good job after that bad start to hang on for a while. Unfortunately I had the dreaded "S" word (shank) on the 17th with my third shot. I had a wedge in there and I shanked it onto the green and actually did well to make a bogey. A bad drive on 18th meant a finishing bogey. But I felt I did well to hang on and keep the score for 16 holes.”

His putting let him down in a way. “Yeah, the putter was just not hot. Yesterday you're holing putts and the game seems easy. I hit a lot of good putts that didn't really go in. I had a horseshoe out on 13. It came straight back at me.”

He added, “On the front nine I found myself leaving quite a few putts short, because in any mind I still had the speed from yesterday. You can't get yourself to hit it far enough past the hole, because you've seen them roll that far past yesterday. But on the back nine, I'm told they're drying out again. On the last five or six holes, some of that stuff that happened yesterday afternoon was happening again.”


Speaking of his first day experience, he said, “Yeah, definitely yesterday gave me a lot of self-belief that, hey, if you're going to lead a Major at some point, you can do it. The more times you put yourself in that position, the better you'll be at it. I think that's the difference between, perhaps me, and most of the players. They regularly get themselves in contention. But the fact that I even did it for nine holes means the ability is there, it's just a question of getting a bit more consistency in the game and being able to do it on a regular basis.”