Thomas Pieters mastered the windy afternoon conditions to fire a second round 66 and join Ryan Fox in a four-way tie for the lead heading into the weekend at the ISPS Handa World Super 6 Perth.
New Zealander Fox recorded a second consecutive round of 68 to set the target at eight under par alongside Australia’s Matthew Griffin and Panuphol Pittayarat of Thailand, with Pieters joining them at the top of a congested leaderboard at Lake Karrinyup Country Club.
The innovative ISPS Handa World Super 6 Perth format will see the top 24 players after three rounds of stroke play progressing to the six hole knockout match play on the fourth and final round on Sunday, with the top eight receiving a bye into the second round.
Belgian Pieters, who secured the ISPS Handa Melbourne World Cup of Golf alongside countryman Thomas Detry on his last visit to Australia, has some match play pedigree having claimed four points on his Ryder Cup debut in 2016.
Fox missed out on the match play stages after losing in a play-off at Lake Karrinyup in 2017 and finished a shot out of the play-off 12 months ago.
Englishman Richard McEvoy, Scot Robert Macintyre and Australian Matt Jager are one shot off the lead at seven under par, with Spain’s Adrian Otaegui and Frenchman Clément Sordet amongst a group of five players at six under par.
Player quotes
Ryan Fox:
“I played really nice yesterday in some tough conditions and today was a little bit scrappy, but we had some pretty nice conditions this morning, greens were perfect. No wind around here makes the course pretty scorable, so it was nice to take advantage of that and be in a good place for tomorrow.
“The last couple years I’ve eyed that top 24 from sort of around the morning and it hasn’t worked out very well for me. I’ll try to aim a little higher this year and see what happens. It looks like it might blow tomorrow afternoon as well, so might be a case of just trying to hang on.
“Certainly no taking the foot off the pedal, just got to try to make some birdies and try to finish as high as possible. There is a little bit of bonus for finishing in that top eight, getting the first round off, and I’ll certainly be aiming for that.”
Thomas Pieters:
“I was two over after whatever, 13 holes, yesterday. To be eight under is a bonus. I’ve rolled in a lot of putts over the past two days and I’m happy where I’m at.
“People can shoot low tomorrow and the cut-off for 24th place could be six, seven under. So maybe I’m a couple shots in, but if you get careless, then I think you can drop a lot of spots easily.
“I think I’m going to go out there tomorrow and act like it’s a stroke play event, and you always want to be in the first place. If you’re not, I don’t think you’re mentally taking it the right way.”
Matthew Griffin:
“I feel like I played two really solid rounds of golf. It’s the right place to be. I think you keep the intensity high. There’s a bit of a bonus for winning (after round three), so ideally you want to be first and that will give you probably the best path through hopefully on Sunday.
“The leaderboard’s really tight, so you’re going to have to play good golf tomorrow to make sure you get through it. It’s not going to be a walk in the park. But you do, given the circumstances, you do take a little bit more notice of those holes that will be there on Sunday.”
Panuphol Pittayarat:
“Seven birdies and one bogey, obviously very happy with the round. The main thing was I putted really well today and I kept my ball in play. I hit well yesterday as well, but I didn’t hole as much as today. So the key was on the greens today.
“I told my caddie on Wednesday, we were very lucky to play first off in the afternoon yesterday and first off today. I wouldn’t say it would be easier, but playing with the less wind is always better. I still push myself every shot every day, I still stick to my routine and see what happens.”
Round two scores
136 T Pieters (Bel) 70 66, P Pittayarat (Tha) 70 66, R Fox (Nzl) 68 68, M Griffin (Aus) 69 67,
137 R McEvoy (Eng) 67 70, R Macintyre (Sco) 70 67, M Jager (Aus) 69 68,
138 A Otaegui (Esp) 70 68, B Henson (USA) 71 67, C Sordet (Fra) 71 67, B Campbell (Nzl) 67 71, B Kennedy (Aus) 68 70,
139 M Lee (Aus) 70 69, D Lawson (Aus) 69 70, G Forrest (Sco) 74 65, S Jeffress (Aus) 70 69,
140 J Harding (RSA) 71 69, B Evans (Eng) 72 68, J Campillo (Esp) 73 67, M Hoey (Nir) 68 72, Y Chang (Kor) 70 70, C Syme (Sco) 73 67, S Kim (USA) 72 68,
141 S Vincent (Zim) 70 71, D Fox (Aus) 73 68, J Janewattananond (Tha) 71 70, J Zunic (Aus) 70 71, T Murray (Eng) 71 70, A Martin (Aus) 70 71, C O’Reilly (Aus) 72 69, D Beck (Aus) 72 69, A Connelly (Can) 71 70, B Ritthammer (Ger) 71 70, D Gale (Aus) 69 72, G Paddison (Nzl) 70 71, P Dunne (Irl) 73 68,
142 C Crawford (Aus) 74 68, S Hend (Aus) 74 68, G Bourdy (Fra) 69 73, P Fowler (Aus) 73 69, W Ormsby (Aus) 73 69, Y Ikeda (Jpn) 74 68, M McCardle (Aus) 73 69, N Colsaerts (Bel) 74 68, J Wang (Kor) 70 72, S Chawrasia (Ind) 68 74, K Reitan (Nor) 65 77, P Langfors (Swe) 71 71,
143 J Scrivener (Aus) 70 73, M Hendry (Nzl) 73 70, P Lonard (Aus) 72 71, T Pilkadaris (Aus) 70 73, A Dodt (Aus) 74 69, D Gavins (Eng) 74 69, J McLeod (Aus) 71 72, T Lewis (Eng) 73 70, M Tabuena (Phi) 65 78, D Bransdon (Aus) 71 72, H Endycott (Aus) 71 72, Z Murray (Aus) 72 71, A Saddier (Fra) 73 70, N Flanagan (Aus) 68 75, S Kapur (Ind) 73 70, J Younger (Aus) 74 69, P Meesawat (Tha) 70 73, A Quayle (Aus) 70 73,
144 A Sandhu (Ind) 71 73, S Chan (Tpe) 72 72, M Shin (USA) 72 72, J Norris (Aus) 75 69, L De Jager (RSA) 74 70, J Veerman (USA) 73 71, N Cullen (Aus) 72 72, M Fraser (Aus) 70 74, R Green (Aus) 73 71, C S (Ind) 73 71, G Green (Mas) 73 71, D Smail (Nzl) 75 69, A Karlsson (Swe) 68 76, B Eccles (Aus) 74 70, O Wilson (Eng) 74 70, S Gregory (Eng) 73 71, M Brown (Nzl) 71 73, R Ramsay (Sco) 77 67, M Orrin (Eng) 72 72,
145 D Kataoka (Jpn) 73 72, M Manassero (Ita) 73 72, M Antcliff (Aus) 73 72, K Joshi (Ind) 73 72, M Millar (Aus) 74 71, P Saksansin (Tha) 75 70, A Bland (Aus) 73 72, P Figueiredo (Por) 73 72, A Da Silva (Bra) 72 73, M Stieger (Aus) 76 69, K Kitayama (USA) 74 71, H Leon (Chi) 73 72, G Moynihan (Irl) 74 71, J Marchesani (Aus) 72 73, D Boonma (Tha) 70 75, R Chisnall (Nzl) 71 74,
146 J Choi (Kor) 74 72, S Soderberg (Swe) 73 73, C John (Aus) 72 74, M Wright (Aus) 71 75, L Herbert (Aus) 74 72, S Leaney (Aus) 73 73, J Wilson (Aus) 75 71, M Schmitt (Ger) 75 71, J Nitties (Aus) 70 76, F Bergamaschi (Ita) 73 73, D Papadatos (Aus) 72 74, H Park (Kor) 74 72, M Nixon (Eng) 73 73, A Chesters (Eng) 74 72, D Borda (Esp) 73 73,
147 S Yongcharoenchai (Tha) 75 72, I Cantero Gutierrez (Esp) 75 72, D Drysdale (Sco) 76 71, N Fung (Mas) 73 74, C Shinkwin (Eng) 71 76,
148 G Migliozzi (Ita) 72 76, M Choi (Kor) 73 75, A Truslow (USA) 72 76, N O’Hern (Aus) 72 76, A Pike (Aus) 73 75, J Girrbach (Sui) 76 72, D Jordan (Aus) 73 75, S Manley (Wal) 73 75, P Peterson (USA) 78 70, E Kofstad (Nor) 72 76, R Allenby (Aus) 72 76,
149 M Kokocinski (Swe) 78 71, S Hawkes (Aus) 72 77, C Wood (Aus) 73 76, J Morrison (Eng) 75 74, V Madappa (Ind) 74 75, T Aiken (RSA) 71 78, K Koivu (Fin) 73 76, L Johnston (Sco) 71 78,
150 R Wannasrichan (Tha) 78 72, D Law (Sco) 70 80, N Voke (Nzl) 73 77, N Lemke (Swe) 77 73, R Gouveia (Por) 75 75,
151 M Long (Nzl) 73 78, K Johannessen (Nor) 72 79, P O’Malley (Aus) 75 76, J Felton (Aus) 77 74,
153 B Proverbs (Aus) 76 77, M Kawamura (Jpn) 76 77, D Perry (Aus) 74 79, G Ogilvy (Aus) 76 77,
154 J Todd (USA) 77 77,
155 E Ferguson (Sco) 77 78,
** D Nisbet (Aus) 72 RT,
