Lindell took advantage of a calmer morning – eagle from a metre to the cup as the highlight
Oliver Lindell got to play at Heritage La Réserve Golf Links in Mauritius early in the morning at 4:30 Finnish time. Conditions were easier than yesterday, as the worst winds did not bother the players at the start of the round.
The Finn shot a solid 69/-3 round and climbed towards a top 20 finish. He is currently in T22 (-3), and with the wind picking up, his position is likely to remain around this mark.
“The weather was easier today, with light winds on the front nine, but on the back nine it started blowing like yesterday. I had some challenges with my speed on the greens today, which cost me a few strokes. However, my performance was consistent overall, and it’s nice to start climbing the leaderboard on the last weekend of the year,” said Lindell with satisfaction.
The highlight of the round is easy to pick out from the scorecard. Lindell, who rarely celebrates eagles, hit the ball close enough to the back nine on the first par five and did not miss his putt. The Porvoo native was already fifth in the competition in approach shots on the opening day, even though he did not consider them particularly good.
“In my opinion, the approaches were pretty rubbish yesterday, but it seems that others felt the same way. Today there were a few good ones, the highlight definitely being the iron shot on the 12th hole, which I hit to within a metre and sank for an eagle putt.”
The problem areas were largely the same as in the opening round. Difficult par 3s – holes 4 and 14 – also brought bogeys to the scorecard on Friday. The par 5s, on the other hand, went brilliantly, four strokes under par.
South Africa’s Casey Jarvis has pulled ahead of the pack by a small margin and leads with a score of -12.