Twenty-Three Within Six Of Abu Dhabi Lead Including Rory Heading To Yas Links Moving Day

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In a jam-packed leaderboard there is 23 players within six shots of the lead heading to the final two rounds of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship at Yas Links.

The England duo of Aaron Rai and Tommy Fleetwood lead the way on 14-under with Rai, and again wearing a black glove on each hand, brilliantly igniting his round of 64 holing his 214-yard second shot shot for an alratross ‘2’ at the par-5 second hole and then adding five birdies in a mistake-free display.

“I think we had about 185 yards to the front”, said Rai when asked of the albatross.

“The wind was a little bit down off the left and that green was so fast, it slopes front-to-back, pitching a few yards on to the green, actually caught it a little bit clean off the face, the line was great.

“Finished around the front edge and chased its way down there. You couldn’t see it from the back of the fairway, so it was a nice surprise”.

Shane Lowry, and tied with Fleetwood for the first round lead on eight-under, eagled the 11th and then moved to 13-under in total through 13 holes but horribly doubled the 14th, birdied both 15 and 16 but was in no mood for any fireside chat in bogeying the closing two holes to be tied sixth at 11-under.

McIlroy is yet to win the Abu Dhabi and, at present, it looks at though that may again be the scenario come Sunday night after adding a second straight no frills 68 and be tied in 20th place at eight-under.

Nearest Race to Dubai rival Marco Penze needs to get the pedal on the metal over the weekend if he’s to deny Rors the No. 1 title with the Englisman adding a 68, and playing in McIroy’s company for a second day to be sharing 17th place at nine-under and just one shot fewer than the Grand Slam champion.

“It’s been great playing alongside Rory”, said Penge.

“Obviously it’s tough when you’re both trying to beat each other. So I didn’t want to get in the way too much or ask too many questions.

“But he definitely gave me a lot of time, and it was nice to walk the fairways with him and hopefully spend some more time with him in the future and learn a couple of tricks”.

 



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