Atwal Takes one-shot lead McGladrey Classic

Oct 20, 2012 |

St Simons Island (USA)

Tags:

Pushed into ado-or-die situation, Indian golfer Arjun Atwal carded his second best-ever round on the PGA Tour -- a seven-under 63 -- to grab the sole lead at the midway stage of the McGladrey Classic here.

Atwal, whose two-year exemption following the win at Wyndham Championship in 2010 runs out at the end of this year, is at 175 on the Money List. He is staring at the prospect of missing out the card for next year unless he wins or finishes in top-two this week.

Close on Atwal's heels was the American Ryder Cup captain, Davis Love III. Atwal was at 10-under 130, and Love was one behind.

After a three-under first round, he opened the second round at the Sea Island Golf Club with three straight birdies and took the outright lead with a wedge into five feet on the fifth hole, his 14th of the round.
"It feels great. I don't even know how many (birdie) I made. I figured I'd count them up at the end of the round. I'm in a desperate situation. I got no choice to either win or finish in the top two I think my caddie figured out. So I just gotta grind out," said Atwal.

"After those missed cuts at the start of the year, I made a lot of cuts, too, in the middle of the year. Just didn't have any decent finishes in any of the tournaments. So I just have to get a decent weekend in and see what happens."

Reflecting on his round, he said, "It was solid today. Started with three in a row, and then yeah, just kept going. I felt really calm out there, and putter is starting to work. That was the missing link in the last few tournaments that I played. Not last week, but before the FedExCup."

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/196575" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-342327c3609620b00f628b1a74dc119c" value="form-342327c3609620b00f628b1a74dc119c" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85628657" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>