Golfer Neha leads by 9 strokes in 15th leg of Hero WPT

Lucknow, Nov 23 (IANS) Overnight leader Neha Tripathi shot a second successive round of two-under 68 to extend her lead by nine strokes over both Gursimar Badwal and Gaurika Bishnoi, who share the second spot, in the second round of the 15th Leg of the Hero womens Pro Golf Tour.

Neha (68-68) started brilliantly at the Palms Golf Club and Resort here, with two birdies on the opening two holes.

She followed it up with two more birdies on fourth and seventh holes to make the turn at four-under 30. She was playing steady after the turn, until a hat-trick of bogeys from 15th to 17th holes damaged her prospects of stretching the lead to double figures. However, a birdie on the 18th prevented further damage.

Gursimar (75-70), a winner of two events this season, produced the day's second-best card at level par. She had two birdies and bogeys each in the front nine along with a bogey and a birdie in the back nine, and improved her position from overnight eighth to joint second, going into the final round.

Meanwhile, Gaurika (71-74) carded four-over 74 to maintain her joint second position from round one.

Jaipur's Afshan Fatima and Panchkula's Amandeep Drall recorded identical scores of five over 75 in the second round. While Afshan dropped to fourth position, Amandeep slipped one place on the leaderboard.

Mehar Atwal (74-75) and Smriti Mehra (73-76) shared the sixth position after shooting 75 and 76 respectively.

Tvesa Malik (76-75) and Ayesha Kapur (73-79) occupy the eighth and ninth spot respectively, while Saaniya Sharma (79-74) shares the 10th position with amateur Gurjot Badwal. Siddhi Kapoor carded 82 to drop to 12th position on the leaderboard.

The final round will see Siddhi, Gurjot and Saaniya going out in the first group, followed by Ayesha, Tvesa and Smriti.

Mehar, Amandeep and Afshan will tee off in the third group while the leaders comprising of Gaurika, Gursimar and Neha will be the last to tee off.

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