Lindell couldn't get his birdie putts to drop – "I hit better than yesterday"
Oliver Lindell’s second round was more challenging than the opening day at the Qatar Masters. He finished his round with a birdie on the last hole, ending with a par (72). His total score of -6 currently puts him in 20th place. The Finn, who started the day in third place, failed to get his game going during the day, and there were no birdie opportunities like there were yesterday.
What is remarkable about the results is that Lindell felt he had hit the ball significantly better than yesterday, but this was not reflected in the scoreboard. There were only two holes that deviated from par – one bogey and one birdie.
“A difficult round in terms of results, even though I played much better than yesterday, but I didn’t get any good opportunities. From a distance of 5-10 metres, many putts looked like they were going in, but they often rolled through the break. No two days are the same. For some reason, Friday afternoons have been difficult, even though I played better than yesterday.”
On the opening day, Lindell was dazzlingly almost six strokes ahead in terms of approach shots. His statistics were significantly improved by an eagle sunk from the fairway and approach shots close to the flag, which were conspicuous by their absence today. On Friday’s round, he scored 16 greens in regulation, six more than on the opening day. The difference was that Lindell took advantage of virtually every birdie opportunity on his opening round.
As anticipated, the greens at the Qatar course have proven to be unpredictable. Lindell was forced to approach the greens from the rough on several occasions, which inevitably affected his accuracy.
“There were several good openings that I missed on the right side, but they ended up a couple of metres off the fairway. However, we are heading into the weekend in a good position and with a comfortable lead. If we can squeeze out a -15 this weekend, it could be enough to take us anywhere,” said Lindell optimistically.
The Porvoo native has had little to worry about in terms of qualifying for the weekend in virtually any race this season. His previous elimination from the qualifying rounds was a dazzling 18 races ago – last July in Germany.
Patrick Reed (-12), who made a strong comeback to the DP World Tour, rose to the top of the competition. The American Masters winner followed up his victory in Dubai last week with a second place finish after losing to Freddy Schott in a play-off. Lindell’s lead over the players tied for fifth place is three strokes on a birdie-friendly course.