In this four rounds Royal Palm National Golf Championship in progress at the exquisite Royal Palm Golf Course, the contender in command of the situation is N. Thangaraja of Sri Lanka who occupies the top slot on the leader board, taking over from Ali Hai, with a stunning second round of four under par 68.
Add to this his first round score of 74 and his aggregate of two rounds is 142, two under par which certainly makes him look like a dominant contender in the race for individual honors. And by virtue of his superb performance Thangaraja with a fairly decent support from his playing partner N. Ranga managed to capture the International Team Title which concluded after two rounds.
Over the two rounds Sri Lanka team accumulated an aggregate team score of 286, which was good enough to leave the other teams far behind.
In the end Sri Lanka emerged as the winner, while Bangla Desh team comprising Dulal Hossain and Sajib Ali ended up as the runners up with an aggregate score of 286. Pakistan B team consisting of Ghazanfar Mehmood and Wasim Rana came third, their team score being 291.
During the second round on Friday at the par 72, Royal Palm Golf Course, some of the individual performances reflected quality golf. Right on top was Thangaraja of Sri Lanka who started the day with a birdie on the opening hole and thereafter continued to play flawlessly with another birdie on the 8th hole and three consecutive ones on the 10th, 11th and 12th.
In between the birdies, the twelve regulation pars were a treat and made him look like a champion, and he looks confident indeed although the competition from participants like M. Dulal Hossain(Bangla Desh), N. Ranga(Sri Lanka), Waseem Rana(Pakistan) and Ashiq Hussain(Multan)is close indeed. Interestingly Dulal of Bangla Desh is bracketed with Thangaraja at a two rounds score of 142, two under par followed by N. Ranga, Waseem Rana and Ashiq Hussain at 144. Although Dulal has been steady in both the rounds with 71 on the first day and again a 71 on the second day, the star touch was missing and he will have to struggle to match wits with Thangaraja over the next two days. And as Thanga said: “I feel better as the game is progressing and my swing is responding more and more to my command and certainly the putting feel is no longer a problem”. As for Dulal, he said, “I am so happy with my performance here and simply love this excellent Royal Palm Golf Course”.
As for Ali Hai and M. Rehman, they hope to hit back in the third round and not be taken aback with modest performance of the second round.
