Lindell is just three strokes off the lead, even though he was unable to finish his good round due to darkness
Oliver Lindell’s excellent round was unfortunately cut short as darkness fell at The International in Amsterdam, at around 9 pm local time. This setback not only breaks his good run of form, but also means a short night’s sleep, as play resumes tomorrow at 7.15 am. That leaves just ten hours in between for eating, sleeping and preparing for the next round, which will most likely take place after the second round.
Lindell is currently on -5, which puts him in a tie for ninth place. Friday went almost flawlessly in more moderate conditions – three under par over the 14 holes played. The Porvoo native, who performed well, felt that even more could have been achieved.
“There were plenty of good chances today. The conditions were much easier, but I played really well. My putting was particularly on point; even the putts that missed were really close, if not right on the hole.”
Whilst Lindell has occasionally struggled in the early stages of his rounds recently, today was a different story. He was, so to speak, on top form right from the start. The up-and-down on the first hole was almost followed by a run of four birdies – but he had to settle for two. Of these, the putt on the second hole was the longest of the day, over ten metres from the lower level of the green.
The only blemish on his scorecard that day was a bogey on the tricky seventh hole, after his opening shot on the par-3 landed in a greenbunker. There were still some successes towards the end of the round, however, as the Porvoo native made excellent use of the calmer conditions.
“It could have been a tough start again today, but the putts went in and I got off to a good start. Conditions in the last hour were certainly calm for this course. When I finished yesterday, I reckoned that a +4 score would be enough to make the cut, but surprisingly, even +1 doesn’t seem to be enough at the moment. The tees had also been moved forward a bit, so in calm conditions the course was played quite short,” said Lindell.
Lindell hardly needs to worry about the cut line anymore, as a 26th consecutive made cut looks highly likely. Instead, attention can turn to the top of the leaderboard. Lindell is just three strokes behind the leader, Sebastian Söderberg (-8). The gap to joint second place, however, is two strokes.
There were no changes in the Finnish rankings, as Sami Välimäki, who finished his round, also carded a score of -3 and remains one stroke behind Lindell in joint 11th place.