Daniel van Tonder came through the field with a superb six-under-par 65 on Friday to climb into a share of sixth in the European Tour’s DS Automobiles Italian Open at Marco Simone Golf Club in Rome.
After starting his round on the 10th, he had a superb opening nine, with five birdies coming on the 11th, 12th, 15th, 17th and 18th as he turned in five-under 31. He picked up another shot on the first, and then parred his way to the eighth where he dropped his only shot of the day on the par-four there. But he regained that stroke with a closing birdie on the ninth.
His seven-under-par total for 36 holes had him four shots behind the leader, Min Woo Lee of Australia, who had a three-under 68 in the second round to reach 10-under. Lee had a two-stroke lead over Mikko Korhonen of Finland, Spain’s Adri Arnaus, England’s Tommy Fleetwood and Johannes Veerman of the United States.
For the second round in a row, Van Tonder putted superbly. He had 26 putts in both his rounds, and the big difference for him in his second round was he hit more greens in regulation after hitting just half of them in his first-round 70.
George Coetzee had a three-under 68 to be in a share of 34th on two-under, while Darren Fichardt’s two-under 69 took him to one-under for the tournament and a share of 46th together with Dean Burmester who had a level-par 71.
Justin Walters, Wilco Nienaber, Garrick Higgo, Brandon Stone, Justin Harding, Zander Lombard and Haydn Porteous missed the cut, while Thomas Aiken retired in the second round.
